


Genesis of Fate: Episode 01 Sophia

by Saturalia_Knight



Series: Of the Darkness and the Light [1]
Category: Giantess - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Giantess - Freeform, Original Character(s), Original Story - Freeform, Strong Female Characters, giant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 56,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23900302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saturalia_Knight/pseuds/Saturalia_Knight
Summary: It started out as dreams. Or were they nightmares? And that voice, the one telling her to crush and kill!Sophia just another college student, or at least she was. Events out of her control turn her world upside down as she gains new heights and a new perspective on just what is possible. Only she's not alone, and the city of Boston just might find itself crumbling under the weight.Note: This is an original story. It is a primarily narrative-driven story and more of a reticent "gentle" giantess story
Series: Of the Darkness and the Light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722691
Kudos: 1





	1. A Day in the Life

College was hard, it was tough, and it was incredibly difficult to understand the professor at times. For Sophia Moreno, the field of Physics was what she had chosen to pursue at the University of South Boston, and now she was wondering if she had made a mistake.

It had not been her first choice and had been more of a second. Her first had been to study Medicine and become a doctor like her father. Though, as it turned out, that was a profession she couldn’t pursue as the sight of blood, and other people’s bodily fluids tended to make her feel queasy.

So Physics it was.

While the leap from the field of Medicine to Physics might not seem like a logical step to some, it was something she had been interested in at high-school, even if she was one of the only girls that were. Then again, most of the boys were the same, thinking that any of the sciences were for nerds and geeks. The truth was that Physics had been her highest grade in school, getting straight A’s. It was higher than both her Biology and Chemistry, where she tended to get B’s and C’s.

Her other strong grades were in Math, and as those in the know knew, Math and Physics were perfect partners.

So again, Physics it was.

When Sophia had decided to take Physics, she had believed that it was something that she could attain if she put in enough hard work. Her parents had agreed, even though she could tell that her father was a little disappointed that she had decided not to follow in his footsteps.

But things would not turn out quite the way she wanted.

Sophia had thought Physics was hard in school, but in college, it seemed near impossible. While she started off being able to easily understand it, as the year had gone on the concepts had become more bizarre, and it had become more and more difficult to follow.

It was hell. She not only struggled to understand it, but everyone around her seemed not to be having any trouble, nodding along as they took their notes as though what the professor was saying was even remotely understandable. Often, it was as though he was speaking another language.

It was hard for her to sit there and listen when she felt so stupid. She honestly believed that she was way out of her league. Despite this, she wouldn’t allow it to stop her from doing her best. She was not the type of person to give up just because it was too difficult. It only made her want to try harder.

The truth was that she wanted to make her parents proud.

Sophia was half-Colombian. Her mother was American, and her father was an immigrant. Her mother, Sarah, was a school teacher while her father, Edwin, was a skilled doctor. It had taken years, but he now had his own doctor’s office in the town of Danbury which lay around three hours drive from Boston.

Sophia had learned not to mention where her father was from originally. The teasing had started in high school with the cocaine jokes such as other kids holding one nostril down with their finger and snorting up through the other as they walked past as though she was somehow a crackhead just because she was half Colombian. College was a little different, not that some of the other students didn’t still act more than a little immature, because they certainly did. Thankfully, for the most part, it appeared that the majority wanted to learn, which made the atmosphere more conducive to that end.

At least it should have done.

As another nearly incomprehensible lecture came to an end, Sophia rose out of her seat and followed the others out of the class with her large handbag in one hand and her I-pad full of notes in the other. As she moved to one side out of the way so that she could put the device into her handbag, another student awkwardly pushed past her knocking it from her grip.

For a moment, she held her breath as it seemed to fall in slow motion towards the floor. Thankfully, it never struck as a fellow student saved it, but not just any student, it was Mark.

He held it out for her. “Um... here you go,” he said quietly.

“Thanks,” she said as she took it from him and put it in her bag.

The two of them stood there awkwardly for several moments, neither sure what to say to the other.

At over six-foot, Mark towered over her short height of four-eleven. What made things even more awkward was that she liked him, despite knowing next to nothing about him. He was tall, with dark eyes and hair and was also cute in a dorky sort of way. A phrase that her best friend Brooke had also used to describe her.

Sophia wished that she could talk to him, but every time she tried, it felt strange. She wanted to be able to break the tension and while him saving her I-pad from destruction seemed like the perfect opener, she still stood there like a plank of wood.

Thankfully, her best friend, Brooke, showed up and offered some assistance.

“Ask for his number already, Soph.”

Sophia nervously tucked her long black hair behind her ear and bit her lip. “Yeah, I’d like to get your number.”

He seemed surprised. “R-really?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, I would.”

Mark reached into his pocket and fumbled for his phone, almost dropping it in the process. “I have it on here,” he told her as he scrolled through. “Um, h-here it is um, Sophie.”

“It’s Sophia,” she corrected as she took her phone out of her pocket.

He went pale. “Sorry I didn’t... I-mean-I,” he stammered.

“It’s fine, Mark,” she said quickly. “You’re only a single vowel off.”

He nervously showed her his phone screen, and she copied the number down. Done, she passed the phone back to him.

“Do you have any socials or anything?” she asked him.

“I do, but I don’t use them,” he said as he pocketed his phone. “But I can if you want?” he then added quickly.

“Nah, it’s fine, Mark,” she assured him. “I’ll give you a call sometime, I guess.”

“Y-yeah, that sounds great. I-um better get going. See ya.”

He rushed off while Brooke stood in front of her with a huge grin plastered on her face.

Sophia frowned. “What?”

“You two are positively adorkable.”

“Shut-up, Brooke,” Sophia said unimpressed.

At five-seven, Brooke also stood tall over Sophia. Nearly everyone did. She had long since grown used to being the shortest in the room. She often wished that she was taller, but knew that wishing wouldn’t make it a reality. At this point, she knew that she would be short for the rest of her life. She was stuck at an embarrassing sub-five-feet tall.

“Hey, Soph, I learned something today,” Brooke said, smiling.

“Yeah? What?” Sophia asked as the two began to walk down the hallway.

“I heard that Colombian girls can touch their elbows behind their back.”

Sophia glanced at her. “What?”

“Colombian girls can touch their elbows together behind their back,” Brooke repeated.

Sophia was a little confused by that. “Why would Colombian girls be able to do something others can’t?” she asked her friend.

“Because they’re more dexterous.”

“And here I thought the only thing we had over others was big asses.”

“Just try it. I wanna see if it’s true.”

“I’m only half-Colombian, remember?” Sophia reminded her.

“So? Just try it.”

Sophia sighed as she took off her handbag and passed it to Brooke. “Fine, hold this for a moment.”

With wasted effort, Sophia tried in vain to touch her elbows together behind her back, sticking out her large 34F chest in the process. Her actions caught the attention of one of two male students who happened to be walking past.

One elbowed the other in the side and pointed. “Fuck, dude. Check out the tits on her.”

His friend gawked at her chest. “Oh shit, they’re huge!”

In an instant, Sophia’s hands shot from behind her back to cover her chest. She scowled as she heard someone laugh only to find that it was her friend, Brooke.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Sophia said, both unimpressed and feeling embarrassed.

“They’re right,” Brooke said, a massive grin on her face. “You’ve got massive tits. Why do you think I asked you to try? Great view.”

Sophia felt herself grow flushed. “Stop it.”

Brooke looked down at her own flat chest, her smile turning into a frown. “You could at least throw some of that tit my way.”

“Shut up, or you’ll be walking home,” Sophia said as she snatched her handbag back from her friend. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“It’s not my fault you’ve got big juicy tits,” Brooke protested as the two started walking again. “You should see some of the looks the guys give you.”

“They’re too busy staring at my tits to give me any looks, Brooke,” Sophia pointed out.

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I wish they’d look me in the eyes sometimes.”

“I wish they’d look at my tits,” her friend said with a shrug. “But they don’t stare when there’s nothing to stare at.”

Sophia decided to force a change of subject. “So, how long were you waiting?”

“Only about twenty minutes,” Brooke answered. “But you’re my ride and considering we share an apartment I thought I’d wait.”

“Like always.”

“Well, I ain’t walking or taking the bus.”

“We could have got a dorm here,” Sophia pointed out.

“No, thanks,” Brooke said.

The two of them stepped out of the building and made their way to the parking lot. Sophia owned an old Honda Civic which had been a pass-me-down from her father. One day she wanted to be able to afford a car of her own. There was, of course, the issue with her impending student debt. She had to hope that she was not only able to pass but also able to find work afterwards.

Crippling debt, not passing the class and being unable to find work were the three things that had been keeping her up at night. One of those things was bad enough, but all three together was a nightmare, especially when she believed that she wasn’t smart enough to pass. But again, she wasn’t one to just lie down and give up.

With the two of them in the car and buckled in, Sophia started it up with a twist of the ignition and put it in reverse. She waited for a car to pass before she slowly reversed out of the space and pulled up behind the line of vehicles that were waiting to leave the lot.

Brooke rolled down her window and rested her arm on the door as they slowly moved up the queue.

“Soph, you wanna go to Burger King or something?” she asked.

“Nah, I need to watch my figure,” Sophia said with a shake of her head.

“For Mark?” Brooke asked with a teasing smile.

Sophia waited until she had pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road before she answered.

“No, for myself.”

“I don’t see why,” Brooke said with a shrug. “All the fat ends up on your tits and ass anyway.”

“Are you saying I’ve got a fat ass?” Sophia asked, feeling a little insulted by the insinuation.

“A big, firm, round delicious ass,” Brooke clarified. “I bet that’s why that dorky guy likes you. Guys always like the tits or the ass. Hell, some even like both, and you’ve definitely got that and a little more.”

“His name is Mark.”

“Mark, huh.” Brooke’s smile then grew wider. “Ya know, the two of you are the perfect height for each other.”

Sophia frowned and glanced over at her friend. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

She was a little wary of what the answer was going to be. Knowing Brooke’s dirty mind, it was going to be filthy, and she did not disappoint.

“You don’t have to bend down to give him a blowjob.”

Sophia slapped Brooke’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “Don’t be so disgusting,” she uttered, pulling a face.

“Just being honest.”

“I’m not _that_ short. Besides, I literally just got his number. I think I’m a long way off blowing the guy.”

Brooke shrugged again. “You never know with these things. The two of you might hit it off and the next thing you know you’ll be fucking in the bathroom.”

Brooke was referring to an incident that happened a few weeks back. The two had been caught having sex in a bathroom stall. In response, the university had thrown the male student out as a result. Some thought it was harsh to expel the guy, especially when nothing had happened to the girl. Unfortunately, that was how these things went, even if it wasn’t entirely fair.

Brooke watched a McDonalds pass by. “So, what do you wanna get?” she asked.

“Get?” Sophia asked in return, not entirely paying attention to her friend.

“Yeah, to eat?”

It was Sophia’s turn to shrug. “I dunno. I was thinking of just making a salad when we got back to the apartment.”

“Salad?” Brooke asked with a roll of her eyes. “Come on, Soph, it’s Friday. You can make a salad tomorrow.”

Sophia was about to tell her friend she wouldn’t be able to when Brooke continued, cutting her off. “Speaking of tomorrow, could you drive me to the mall?”

“Sorry, you’ll have to take an Uber or the subway. I’m off to see my parents over the weekend.”

“The subway?” Brooke asked in disbelief. “I’d have to walk like five blocks. Couldn’t you drop me off before going?”

“Danbury is like three hours away from here, remember? I’m setting off early so I can spend as much time with the family as possible.”

“Why are you going anyway?”

“It’s Dad’s birthday.”

“Oh, right,” Brooke remembered. “You got his gift the other day.”

“Yeah and I’m staying there over the weekend.”

“It’s gonna be boring without you, Soph.”

Sophia glanced at her. “Just call that Eddie guy. You two still together, right?”

“No, we broke up.”

“You broke up with Eddie?” Sophia asked in surprise. “When? I thought you were really into each other.”

“Not my type. Besides, I don’t wanna talk about Eddie.”

“What do ya wanna talk about?”

“Whether we’re gonna stop at KFC or not?”

Sophia pulled a face. “Yuck. Way too salty.”

“No, it’s not,” Brooke objected. “In that case, how about Pizza Hut?”

“No.”

“Papa Johns?”

“No.”

Brooke tried one last time. “What about Wendy’s?”

“Fine,” Sophia relented. “If you really wanna eat out, then sure. But you’re paying for it.”

“That’s fine. I’ll save money by ordering you the kids meal.”

“Be glad I’m driving,” Sophia threatened, half-joking, half-serious.

Brooke was enjoying this far too much. “You love me, Soph.”

“Not enough to not drive us straight home without stopping for anything,” Sophia said.

Brooke turned in her seat to face her friend. “Oh, come on Soph. I was just kidding.”

“So am I.”

“Then we’re still going to Wendy’s?” Brooke asked, hopefully.

“Yes,” came Sophia’s response. “We’re still going to Wendy’s.”

“Thanks, Soph.”

The fast-food restaurant wasn’t too much of a diversion. After parking in the lot, the two-headed inside. Sophia sat down at an empty table after telling Brooke she wanted Mozzarella Chicken Salad as she went up to to the front to order. It wasn’t long after that until the two were eating. Sophia had a salad while her friend had a square hamburger and some fries. Both had a medium coke.

Sophia wasted no time commenting on her friend’s choice of meal. “I don’t know how you’re not fat. All you do is eat garbage.”

“No I don’t,” Brooke objected. “I only have it once or twice a week.”

“And somehow you nearly always manage to drag me into having it too.”

“I got my burger and fries, you got your salad, and I’m paying for it. So I don’t know why you’re complaining?”

Sophia became a little defensive. “I’m not, just pointing it out.”

“You’re stressed,” Brooke blurted out.

That confused Sophia. “What?”

“I think you need to relax a little”

“I am relaxed.”

“What’s wrong, Soph? You can tell me.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Sophia said firmly, turning her attention back to her salad.

“College has you worried. You don’t think you’re gonna pass, do you?”

“No, it’s not that at all.”

“Then explain why you’re up until four in the morning berating yourself over it?”

“I don’t,” Sophia said defensively.

“I can hear you. Tell me what’s wrong, I’ll listen.”

The half-Colombian girl was unsure. “Do you really wanna hear me complain?”

“I’m here for you. I’m your bestie, remember?”

Sophia relented. “Listen, Brooke,” she began with a sigh. “The truth is I’m scared, okay.”

“About what?”

“I sit there trying to pay attention, but most of it goes right over my head. I’m trying to understand, hell, I’m even looking up what I don’t online. It’s just that it’s too hard and I’m afraid I’m gonna fail and let down my mom and dad.”

“Sometimes you need to step away. Look at the problem with fresh eyes,” Brooke offered.

“I don’t have the time to step away. I need to study, and I need to pass.”

“What I’m saying is that you’re so overworked with studying that you can’t think straight. Things that should make sense to you don’t, because your brain’s too tired.”

“Could be,” Sophia said, unsure.

“You’re smart, Soph. A lot smarter than me. But when you stress out, you get dumb.”

Sophia fell silent and focused on finishing her salad. She knew that Brooke was probably right, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time to take it easy. If she did, then she could easily fall behind, and if that happened then, she doubted she would ever be able to catch back up again.

Sometimes she wished that something would happen that was big enough to get her out of this. Something that would give her the time she needed to get her head on straight. She wanted to pass, she wanted to get a degree, and she wanted it badly.

It was roughly thirty minutes later when they arrived home to their shared apartment. They were barely through the door when Sophia kicked off her shoes and headed for her room. She then paused, her hand clutching the door handle as she turned around to face her friend.

“I’m off to grab a shower and get an early night.”

“Sure,” Brooke said as she sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV.

After getting a t-shirt and some clean knickers that she would sleep in, she headed into the bathroom where she stripped off and climbed into the shower.

If there was one downside to having large breasts; other than the fear of back pain later in life, it was how they tended to sweat in the creases between and beneath them. It was worse in summer when after a long day she could smell her sweaty tit-stink.

The shower didn’t take long, and for the rest of the evening, she sat with Brooke watching TV in her knickers and t-shirt until nine when she finally headed for bed.

At first, sleep eluded her as she tossed and turned in bed. Thankfully, after around two hours, she finally managed to drift off to sleep.

Unfortunately, it was far from peaceful.

Dreams were something that Sophia rarely remembered. Those she did remember were usually about her failing at college and often resulted in her fleeing the lecture hall in tears. The dream that night, however, was very different. Not only was it vivid, but there was a certain clarity beyond what she had ever experienced in a dream before.

In the dream, Sophia stood tall above the city street. Not only was she a giant, but she was completely naked. Her breasts were as large as the cars that drove at her feet, and her legs stretched down impossibly far.  
What was even more strange than being so tall was how no one seemed to be paying her any attention. It was as though she wasn’t even there.

Slowly, she began to walk forwards, her large feet cracking the asphalt under her heavy footfalls. Cars and buses drove around her, barely affected by her massive lumbering presence.

Sophia stopped by a high-rise and peered inside. It was an office building, and the people were going about their daily business. Like before, they seemed utterly oblivious to her presence.

Losing interest, she stepped away from the building and made her way out of downtown Boston, heading eastwards out of the city.

Soon she was walking among the houses that lay beyond the small metropolis. She felt like she was looking for something, or someone but didn’t know what or who.

Sophia felt like she was walking through a miniature town. The people looked like small moving dolls, and the cars looked like toys. What was most surreal was how real it felt, and she was only peripherally aware that she was in a dream.

Despite looking like every other house, one seemed to stand out. Slowly, she approached it and lowered herself down onto her hands and knees so that she could see into the upstairs window. Inside she could see Mark, and it appeared he was studying at his computer. She moved closer so that she could get a better look at him to find that he was jerking off to something. Despite her giant eye being mere feet outside his window, he continued, completely oblivious to her presence.

With a smile, she stood back up and reached down for the roof. With barely any effort, she tore it off and threw it to the side with a mighty crash as it smashed against the road.

Strangely, he remained there jerking off to porn on his computer, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. Sophia stood there for a few moments, watching him curiously.

It wasn’t until she reached in to grab him that the world around her seemed to change.

Mark looked up at her as her fingers wrapped around his body, and he began to scream along with a crescendo of explosions behind her.

With Mark firmly in her grip, she looked around to see not only had the houses around her been crushed, but the city itself was in ruin.

Her focus moved back to Mark as she raised him to her face. He screamed louder as he tried desperately to free himself from her grip. She straightened out her pinky and third finger, exposing the lower half of his body and his still erect penis.

She smiled and licked her lips as she brought him in closer. While it looked quite large on his thin frame, when compared to her massive form, it was tiny. It felt even smaller as she slipped it partially between her lips.

Mark had stopped screaming now, and his eyes were firmly closed as she slowly caressed his penis with her lips and tongue.

 **“Destroy!”** a harsh, yet feminine voice then commanded from inside her head.

Sophia moved Mark away from her mouth and lowered him down to chest height. She looked around for the source of the voice to see a form coalesce in front of her. It was a dark, imposing figure made of smoke and ash. Its eyes glowed a deep red, and its mouth was full of sharp teeth.

 **“Destruction,”** it said. “ **Crave it, feel it. Destroy everything. Crush it beneath your feet.”**

Sophia hugged Mark closed against her bare chest as she watched what remained of the city crumble before her eyes. On the wind, she could hear the screams, and while at first, it filled her with dread, she then began to feel powerful. She was unstoppable, and the whole world was her toy.

The giantess rose Mark up to her face and smiled, surrendering to the urges she felt. “I want to feel you inside me,” she told him with a huge grin.

She lowered him down to her crotch, and with her free hand, she spread her vagina wide before inserting him inside. His struggling, writhing body sent waved of pleasure through her as she enveloped him completely. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

But she was far from done.

Sophia ran forwards, crushing cars, houses and people beneath her feet. The screams only made her feel stronger, divine even. There was nothing they could do. There was no way they could hope to stop her. They were nothing to her, except for bugs to be crushed.

Ahead of her was a tall building. The people inside all stood by the windows staring at her in both shock and fear. She stepped up beside the skyscraper and pushed her breasts against it. Instead of her breasts flattening against the side as she had expected, they smashed through, causing the building to shudder then collapse.

As she stepped back in surprise, she looked down to see five tiny people hanging on to her erect nipples. Without a second thought, she slapped her hands against her flesh, smearing their crushed remains against her massive mounds.

The feeling of power over their tiny lives was intoxicating. Sophia felt like she wanted, no, needed more.

Again without thought, she reached down and scooped a handful of people like they were Skittles and tossed them into her mouth. She began to chew, feeling their bodies split open like grapes between her teeth.

That was when the dream ended.

Sophia awoke in bed, shaking, covered in sweat. She sat up, holding her mouth as she choked back the vomit that threatened to spew out.  
After a few minutes, the urge began to subside, and she checked her alarm clock for the time.

**06:28**

Slowly, she climbed out of bed, pulling down her shirt which had ridden up her torso, exposing her left breast. With a deep sense of unease, she made her way to the kitchen nook and grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard before filling it up with tap water.

Quickly, she gulped it down, able to taste vomit on the back of her tongue.

“What the fuck was that?” she whispered out loud.

The dream had been so vivid, so crisp, so real. Sophia could easily remember the joy and arousal she had felt while killing those people. The feeling was now gone, replaced by horror. She felt nauseous, and her body refused to stop trembling.

Sophia put the glass down on the side and reached over to pull back the curtains. Outside, the city looked like it always did. There was no sign of anything wrong, not that she had expected there to be. It was just that the dream had felt so real that it was hard to believe it wasn’t.

She released the curtains and let them fall back into place then headed back to her bedroom. There, she sat at the edge of her bed for ten minutes, before she reached over for her alarm clock and switched it off. She knew that there was no point in going back to bed now and might as well get ready to go.

After packing some clothes, she took a quick shower to wash off the sweat before leaving, locking the door behind her.

A few minutes later she was in her car and on the road, her destination nearly three hours away.


	2. At Home With the Family

Danbury was a large town, but it was tiny when compared to the Greater Boston area. Both Sophia and Brooke were raised here, and this was where they had become the best of friends.

Unlike Sophia, who got on well with her parents, Brooke despised hers. Her father was in the military and was barely ever home, and her mother was often drunk and mistreated her as a result. It had been difficult for her, which was why Brooke had spent nearly all her time at Sophia’s house. Now they lived together in the same apartment.

A smile spread across Sophia’s face as she pulled up out in front of her family home. After all the months in Boston, it was good to be home. Despite being happy to now have her own life and freedom that it brought, she had missed her parents and even her brother, and she was looking forward to seeing them again. She noted that the car wasn’t in the drive, which meant one, or all of them were out. It didn’t matter, though, as she could easily wait if there was no one in.

Sophia grabbed her case, which held not only some of her clothes, but also her father’s gift, and made her way up to the front door, ringing the bell. It was now half-ten in the morning, which was earlier than she had intended, but her early rise had meant an early arrival.

With a second ring of the doorbell, it opened, revealing her mother, Sarah who held her arms out inviting a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too, Mom,” Sophia said in return as they hugged. “Has Dad gone out?” she asked as the two released each other.

“He went to the store with your brother,” Sarah said as she moved aside to let her daughter into the house.

Sophia picked up her case and stepped inside. It was always good to be back home. She wished that Boston was closer so that she could visit more often, but with it being a five to six-hour round trip, it was too far to make too often. At least it was for her.

Sarah gestured down at the case in Sophia’s hand. “You can take that up to your room and unpack. It’s just as you left it.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Sophia said as she strode up the stairs.

As she pushed her bedroom door open, she was struck by intense emotion. As much as she liked the apartment back in Boston, this was her home. From zero to eighteen, this had been where she had awoken in the morning and had slept at night. No matter where she lived, it would never truly be home. At least not like this.

Sophia put her case on the bed and opened it up. She then took out her father’s wrapped gift first and placed it on top the chest of the drawers by the bed before unpacking the rest, putting them inside.

With the case empty, she placed it in the corner by the window and pulled out her phone as she sat down on the edge of her bed. Checking through it, she found that Brooke had sent her a message. It asked if Mark had sent a message back with a wink-face emoji.

Confused, Sophia checked her sent messages and found one from last night at eleven-forty. Considering that she had been asleep, she knew that it had to have been Brooke. Curious, she opened it up, and her face went immediately flush.

It was a pic of her laying in bed asleep. The light was on, revealing her in all her embarrassing glory. Her legs were wrapped around her blankets as though she were trying to make love to them. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Her shirt rode high, exposing her left breast. Underneath it, the text read: **thinking about** **u** **.**

“I hate you,” Sophia fumed. She couldn’t believe Brooke had sent that to Mark. He was going to think she was weird or something.

Sophia realized that she was going to have to try and fix the damage. Getting someone’s number and sending a tit-pic as the first message was not normal. Then again, maybe he liked it? With haste, she pushed the thought out of her head. No, she needed to fix the potential damage and quickly.

Frantically, she began to write out a message explaining how it had been her friend Brooke who had sent it and how she felt awkward about it. She quickly sent off the message, then locked her phone before heading back downstairs with it in her pocket. As she reached the bottom, the front door opened and her father Edwin and fourteen-year-old brother Chris stepped inside.

While both of Sophia’s parents were taller, her mom at five-foot-five and her dad at five-foot-four, her little brother wasn’t, being only an inch shorter than her four-foot-ten. She suspected that it wouldn’t last much longer. It annoyed her to know that she would probably end up being the smallest in the family at under five-feet.

“Dad,” she called out as she rushed over, giving him a tight hug. “Happy birthday.”

“It is not until tomorrow,” he said as he hugged her back.

He still had an accent, but it had dulled over the years. Even so, it was strong enough that people noticed.

“It is good to see you, my little Biscuit.”

If there was one thing she hated about her father, it was when he called her ‘Little Biscuit’. As to where it had even come from, she had no clue. She had never heard anyone else use it before or since. If it had one thing going for it, it was most undoubtedly original.

The two ended the hug, and Sophia turned to her little brother, ruffling his hair. “You’ve grown since I last saw you.”

He pushed past her, fixing his hair as he ran upstairs to his room, probably to play on his PlayStation. Sophia decided to do his job and helped her father with the groceries.

Sophia looked inside the bag as she placed it down on the table. “What did you get?” she asked.

“Milk, bread, some orange juice, eggs and other things we needed,” he answered. “As well as a few things your mother needed to make dinner tomorrow.”

“Yeah? What are we having?” Sophia asked.

“Bandeja Paisa,” Edwin answered. “Or as close as Sarah can get to it.”

“My favorite,” Sophia said, despite not being all that fond of it.

“I wish you could taste the real one from back in Colombia. What your mother makes is good, but it is not the same.”

“Hey,” Sarah said as she stepped into the kitchen. “I try my best with what ingredients I can get.”

“I know you do,” Edwin said with a smile as he finished putting the groceries away. “I miss home sometimes, that’s all.”

Sophia turned to her mother. “So, what are you making today?”

“I thought I would order pizza for a change,” Sarah answered. “That’ll be tonight, though. We have other plans for lunch.”

“That’s great,” Sophia answered with fake enthusiasm. She had been hoping to get to eat more of her mother’s cooking while she was here. Not some pizza,

Unfortunately, Sarah saw right through her. “You don’t want pizza?” she asked.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll eat whatever you give me.”

Edwin grinned. “Estupendo! Then it is settled. We eat the pizza today then something good tomorrow.”

Sarah folded her arms. “We don’t have to have pizza if neither of you wants it?”

“Who said they did not want it?” Edwin asked her.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sarah muttered as she walked out of the kitchen.

Sophia followed her through into the living room. “Sorry, Mom. Pizza is fine. I know you and Chris love it. If you want it, then we’ll have it.”

Her mother smiled. “That’s great because that’s what we’re eating tonight.” Sarah then changed the subject. “So, how’s Brooke?”

“She’s good,” Sophia answered.

“Got yourself a boyfriend yet?”

“Not yet.”

Sophia briefly considered mentioning Mark but knew it would elicit more questions, and he wasn’t even her boyfriend at this point, she just had his number. There was also the question as to what kind of damage Brooke might have done with that inappropriate pic she had sent him.

Edwin stepped into the room. “Have you told her about the picnic?” he asked.

A smile spread across Sophia’s face. “A picnic?”

She used to love going out on picnics when she had been a lot younger, back before her brother had been born. They had been fun, but as she had grown older, they had stopped. It was a shame that her brother had never experienced it. Going on picnics on hot summer days were some of her favorite memories of her childhood.

“A picnic sounds great,” Sophia said grinning.

“Your brother does not want to go,” Edwin mused.

“Too bad,” Sophia said with a shrug. “It won’t stop _me_ from having fun.”

Her dad chuckled at that. “Sarah has already made the food to take with us. Everything is in the refrigerator, ready to go.”

After checking the time, Sarah headed back into the kitchen. “I better get it all into the basket.”

Sophia and Edwin followed her through and watched as she retrieved a wicker basket from a cupboard and put it on the table.

“How long have you had that?” Sophia asked, amazed that they had an actual picnic basket.

“Bought it the other day at Walmart,” Sarah answered as she opened the top of the basket. “Soph, go fetch your brother, would you?”

“Sure,” Sophia answered as she left the kitchen and made her way swiftly upstairs.

She knocked on her brother’s door and waited. She could hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the other side, meaning he was playing a game. Gripping the handle, she pushed the door open and stepped into his room where he glanced over at her in annoyance.

“I’m busy,” he muttered.

Sophia folded her arms. She was expecting an argument. “We’re going out on a picnic.”

“I know,” he said, continuing to play.

“Switch that off it’s time to go downstairs.”

“In a minute.”

“Now, Chris.”

“I’ve almost won. Just let me finish this match.”

Despite knowing that she probably shouldn’t, she moved over and sat down next to him at the end of the bed and watched him play.

“What are you doing?” he asked, not taking his eyes off of the screen.

“I’m watching you play your game,” she told him, noting that the timer on the screen indicated that there were around fifty seconds left.

Sophia watched as her brother gunned down another player that ran around a corner in a spray of digital blood. He ran forward and jumped around the corner, shooting indiscriminately.

Sophia stood up as the match ended with a win. “Turn it off now,” she told him.

“Okay,” he accepted, sounding more than a little crestfallen.

“You can continue when we get back,” she said. “We don’t do stuff as a family anymore, especially since I moved out of town.”

Chris didn’t respond as he switched off his game console and his TV. She followed him as he left his room and headed downstairs to the front door where he put on his sneakers. As Sophia put on her shoes, their mother Sarah came in from outside.

“We’ll be ready to go once you two are in the car.”

Sophia followed Chris as they headed out to the car and climbed inside while Sarah locked the front door. It was a little strange to be sitting in the back seat, as these days she had her very own car, which she used primarily to get to college or her part-time job. It almost made her feel like a kid again with just the four of them going out as a family.

It took no time at all for them to reach the Danbury Town Park, by the Lower Park Cove where the picnic area was located. Nearby was a children’s playground with children playing on the swings, teeter-totters and slides. When she had been much younger, there had also been some monkey bars, but after a kid had fallen off them and broken his arm, the local council had decided to remove them.

It had turned out to be a rather beautiful day with barely a cloud marring the bright blue sky. The only thing that threatened to ruin it was Chris’s sour mood. He would have preferred to stay home and play on his PlayStation, and they all knew it.

Regardless, the rest of them made the best of it with Sophia setting up the cloth on the old wooden table, their mother placing down the plastic picnic plates and drinking cups, while their father brought the wicker basket, placing it down in the center of the table. He then opened it, taking out the tub of sandwiches, the small bite-sized sausage rolls and the cans of Pepsi; which in their mother’s opinion was the superior carbonated soda.

In all honesty, Sophia couldn’t tell much of a difference between Pepsi and Coke. They both tasted pretty much the same to her.

Chris’s frown disappeared as the family tucked into their lunch. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of children’s laughter from the playground. It was the perfect picture of serenity. The only downside was that Sophia would have to drive back to the city tomorrow evening and she honestly didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay here in Danbury, but she knew that she couldn’t. She had her own life now.

Unfortunately, the picnic was over far too quickly. Thankfully, though, they didn’t head straight home and instead, after packing everything away, they took a long walk along the bank.

They stayed there for the remainder of the afternoon, which rushed by, and soon they were back in the car heading home, or at least that’s what Sophia thought. Instead, they stopped off at Pizza Hut where they shared a large pepperoni pizza.

Before they knew it, it was half-nine in the evening, and everyone was going to bed. For Sophia, it felt a little surreal to be back in her old room after all these months of living in the city. It seemed like forever, but strangely it also felt like no time at all.

With the light off she climbed back into the familiar bed and stared up at the familiar ceiling. It brought back a lot of happy memories, especially of sleepovers with Brooke. The two had been best friends since she could remember and while they’d had their fights, they had always made up, in the end, had remained close. It was something she hoped would last forever, and she knew Brooke felt the same way.

Regardless of the nostalgia of being home, she was glad she had moved out. She had far more autonomy now then she had ever had here at home. She felt free even if the shackles of college weighed her down.

That was something she didn’t want to think about, not here, not when she was trying to sleep. Instead, she tried to focus on clearing her mind so that she could get some sleep. Eventually, she did, though, with it, came an all too familiar scene as she began to dream.

Sophia stood tall above the city street, absolutely naked. Her legs stretched on forever down to the road that looked like it had to be at least one hundred feet beneath her. No one paid her any mind and went about their business as if nothing was amiss.

A sense of Déjà vu washed over her. She got the feeling that this was a dream, one she’d had only yesterday. Being aware of this fact didn’t ease the tension she felt. Nor did it explain the clarity in which the city around her manifested itself.

Dreams tended to have a hazy quality about them. Things often moved out of order or shifted from place to place. None of this was present at that moment. The world around her felt strangely real, and she swore she could even feel the wind on her bare naked chest.

**“ Destroy.”**

Sophia jumped at the loud whisper that seemed to surround her. It almost sounded like someone had whispered in both ears at once.

**“ Crush them beneath your feet.”**

The voice was disturbing, and Sophia didn’t like it. She also didn’t like what it was telling her to do. Memories of the last dream she’d had were all too vivid, and she certainly didn’t want to repeat it.

**“ Turn it all to dust.”**

Sophia covered her ears. She didn’t want to hear it, yet the whispers continued.

**“ Let the destruction thrill you. Lust for it, crave it, be it.”**

Something began to swell within her. Something terrible. She could feel the desire, and it was intoxicating. Everything and everyone around her was at her mercy. All she had to do was swing out an arm or leg, and the artificial towers would come crashing down. It would be the death of hundreds, and just the mere thought made her wet.

**“ Let the destruction excite you. Let it satisfy you.”**

Almost as though something had taken control of her arm, it shot out and connected with the closest building. It was as though the structure was made out of sand as her hand passed through the outer wall with ease, sending rubble and broken glass careening down to the sidewalk.

In an instant, the world around her was alive with activity. People were screaming and running in terror. The excitement washed over her, and she began to charge forward, running through the building in front. Her mass pulverized it, but not completely. Enough remained to trip her, and she went crashing down, landing on the parking lot on the other side, smashing the concrete to dust.

For some time she laid there on her front, but the whispering voice wouldn’t leave her alone. “ **Chaos,”** it said. “ **Death.”**

This was not what she wanted, yet it felt so good. She wanted more but couldn’t bring herself to stand. So instead she lay there in the small body-shaped crater she had imprinted on the ground.

The voice then returned, but not as a whisper but as a shout. “ **Destroy!”**

With a lurch, Sophia awoke in her bed, drenched in sweat. She felt like she was suffocating and needed air. With a grunt, she threw the sheets aside and made her way to the window, pulling the curtains aside and threw the window open, letting the cold night air cool her sweat-soaked face.

What had caused these bizarre dreams she had no idea. She couldn’t remember watching or reading anything that could have triggered them, but something clearly had. Sophia honestly couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a reoccurring dream, let alone one so vivid and real. It was almost like she had lived it.

Closing the window, she headed out of her bedroom into the bathroom, where she splashed her face with cold water. She dried it off with a towel then stared at herself in the mirror. It didn’t go past her notice that she looked a little haggard.

After splashing her face with some more water, she headed back to bed, hoping that the dream wouldn’t repeat itself. Not that it would. She couldn’t remember ever having a dream continue afterwards, at least not in the same night.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get her wish.

The moment she fell asleep, a tiny, yet familiar city coalesced around her. There she stood, high above the university she went to, and down below someone was stood at one of the upper windows shouting something at her. She couldn’t tell what they were saying or who they were. They were simply too tiny.

Wanting to know, she leaned down so that she was at eye level to find that it was her professor, Dr Benson.

“You’re breaking the laws of physics young lady,” he admonished.

“Please don’t fail me,” she pleaded, before realizing she was talking nonsense. None of this was real, and the dream version of Dr Benson couldn’t affect her in real life. Especially not her grade.

Dr Benson answered her regardless of it not being real. “Fail? I’m considering it, but then again, this is what science is all about. Breaking and disproving what we know to open up new avenues of study. I should pass you on the spot.”

Strangely, that made her feel happy despite this all being a dream. “Thank you,” she said gratefully.

Their conversation was then rudely interrupted by the ever-present whispering voice. “ Kill him,”  it  commanded . “ Feel the joy of his spine and ribs snapping in your grip.”

In an instant, Dr Benson was afraid as though he had heard the voice in her head. He stumbled back away from the window in fear.

“Don’t kill me!” he screamed out before bolting out of the room.

Sophia stood up to her full height of a hundred feet and stared up towards the sky. She was livid.

“Would you stop!” she yelled out.

**“ Destroy! Kill them all.”**

“I said, stop it!” she shouted, covering her ears. “I don’t want to hear it, and I won’t do what you tell me.”

An unseen force seemed to push her. She stumbled and tripped over the main campus building, her massive form smashing it to dust. A wave of pleasure shot through her, as did bile in her throat. It might have been a dream, but it still felt wrong. Everything was too real, the feeling of the air, the texture of the rubble, everything. It was far too real, yet still not quite right.

Not wanting to do anything else, Sophia just laid there. She no longer wanted to participate in this dream. Sophia wanted it to end, but it didn’t. Instead, a second wave of pleasure moved through her as she began to grow. Slowly at first, but then it started to accelerate faster and faster. She cried out in horror as the city around her was crushed to dust as her body expanded. Her ever-expanding form rolled over the smaller buildings and sent the taller ones crashing down like dominoes.

She continued to grow: five-hundred feet, seven-fifty, one-thousand, one-two-fifty, one-five-hundred, two-thousand, three-thousand. She kept on growing until the entire city; or rather what remained of it, was nothing but powder beneath her unimaginable scale.

She had just killed around seven-hundred-thousand to maybe over a million people.

Nausea replaced the pleasure she felt. She wanted to hurl, but nothing came out. Even if it did, she knew she would flood the area, possibly killing more.

No. Sophia shook the thought out of her mind. None of this was real; it was just a fucked up dream. One that wouldn’t leave her alone. All she wanted was to be able to wake up. To wake up and be free of this nightmare.


	3. A Happy Birthday

Sophia’s eyes snapped open to a churning stomach and a feeling of nausea. She threw the sheets aside and ran to the bathroom where she vomited into the toilet. For the next ten minutes, she sat there next to the bowl until her head finally began to clear.

After flushing and washing her face, she headed back to her room. It was now light outside which she was thankful for. She didn’t want to go back to bed in fear that the dream would come back for a third time. Instead, she grabbed a quick shower. She certainly felt like she needed it.

Finished, she made her way back to her bedroom, where she sat on the edge of the bed. There she remained until she heard her parents get up and head downstairs. With a sigh, she changed out of her nightgown and stared at her naked form in the mirror.

“Better get up,” she said as she grabbed a clean pair of knickers and bra from the drawer. Her knickers went on easy enough, though she noted they felt a little tight around her butt. Her bra, on the other hand, was definitely tighter than she remembered.

After struggling to fasten it for a good couple of minutes, she succeeded. Looking in the mirror, she noticed her boobs looked like they were about to spill out over the top. The thing was that they didn’t appear any bigger, at least not compared to the rest of her body, so that meant the bra had to have shrunk, right?

Nausea returned as she continued to stare at her reflection. Had she grown? Was she taller? Had the dream been real? No, she refused to believe that. Not only was it idiotic, but it was also impossible. It had to be.

With a half-hearted shrug, she slipped into a t-shirt, though struggled when it came to putting on her jeans. Trying to get them on was close to torture. She laid on the bed, wriggling and writhing as she tried to pull them up. Finally, she got them all the way up, but that was only the beginning of the battle. It began anew when she tried to fasten the button.

Thankfully, she managed it, but they felt way too tight. She had to wonder if she had accidentally taken Brooke’s jeans by accident?

With another half-hearted shrug, she grabbed her father’s birthday present and card and headed downstairs.

Entering the split dining room and kitchen, Sophia put the large present down on the table with a rattle. Her father, who was eating cereal looked up at her with a smile, her mother looking around from where she stood at the sink.

“Sounds like bottles,” Edwin said. “Beer?” He put down his spoon and moved his bowl aside to open his gift.

Sarah admonished him. “Open it after you’ve eaten your breakfast, Edwin,” she said. “There’s no rush.”

Quickly, he finished off his cereal, milk dribbling down his chin. Sophia couldn’t help but smile at his eagerness, something she desperately needed after the rough night she’d had. Once he was done, he stood up and put his bowl and spoon by the sink before grabbing his gift.

Again, Sarah told him off. “Open your card first.”

“Cincuenta!” he said, throwing his hands up into the air in exasperation. “I am fifty years old. I do not need a nanny.”

“Card.”

“Fine,” he said, opening it up. He read the front, then looked inside. “It’s lovely, my little biscuit.” He placed it down before getting to the main course, which was the present.

He tore open the wrapping and looked at the beers inside. “Are these from microbreweries?”

“Yeah,” Sophia answered. “You said you preferred them to the big corporate stuff.”

“I do, thank you.” He stood up with his arms wide, and she gave him a hug. What he said next gave her chills. “Have you grown?”

She released him from the hug and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You seem a little taller.”

“No, I’m definitely the same height,” she said firmly. “When is Chris getting up?” she then asked quickly, changing the subject.

Her Mom answered. “Another hour, I should think.”

“We should get him up early today since it’s dad’s birthday,” Sophia suggested.

Edwin chuckled. “He would not like that I think.”

Sarah agreed with her daughter. “It’s not about what he likes. It’s almost nine, he should be up to give you your gift.”

“You mean the one you bought for him to get me,” Edwin said to his wife with a knowing smile.

Sarah gestured toward the door. “Sophia, go and wake your brother up.”

“Sure,” Sophia agreed as she quickly headed back upstairs and knocked on her brother’s door. “Time to get up,” she called out.

There was no answer.

She knocked again. “Come on, Chris. Time to get up. I’m not leaving until you are. Don’t make me come in there.”

“I’m asleep,” was his muffled response.

“You don’t sound like you’re asleep. I better come in and make sure.”

He answered quickly, and with urgency. “No, I’m getting up!”

She heard him move., though that didn’t necessarily mean he was getting up. She decided to simply stand there and wait. If his bedroom door wasn’t open in five minutes, she was going to knock again.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to. The door soon opened, and he scowled at her. “Why are you standing outside my door?”

“I’m making sure you actually got up. It’s Dad’s birthday.”

“I know, I’m not stupid.”

“Yeah, I know, Chris. I know what being a teenager’s like, it sucks.”

He pushed past her and headed for the bathroom. “Whatever,” he muttered as he stepped inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

Sometimes she hated him, but she knew that when she had been his age, she had been just like that. Moody, combative, distant and had a bad attitude. She also got up late and bemoaned any and all chores. She was glad to be past it.

Deciding not to irritate him any more, Sophia made her way back downstairs where she found her Mom and dad sat in the living room.

“He’s up,” she told him. “Not sure about his mood, though.”

“I told you,” Edwin said. “He isn’t happy.”

“As long as he doesn’t ruin the day,” Sarah mused.

Edwin leaned back on the sofa. “He will not ruin _my_ day.”

Sophia sat down next to him. “So, what do you have planned?”

“Nothing,” Edwin said. “I am going to sit back and relax. Put my feet up and drink one of the beers you bought me, then we will eat the Bandeja Paisa your mother makes.”

Sarah smiled. “And I look forward to your comments on how it’s not as good as your mom made down in Colombia.”

He shrugged. “Well, it is not as good. But it is not your fault. It is hard to get a few of the ingredients up here.”

“Well, this time, I scoured around and managed to get a few. Hopefully, it will taste a little more like you remember.”

“I look forward to it.”

They looked towards the door as Chris stepped inside, holding his gift and card. “Here,” he said.

Edwin took it off of him and opened it. “It is that DVD I wanted.”

“Blu-Ray, Dad,” Chris corrected.

Sarah shook her head in disappointment. “You opened the gift before the card.”

Edwin shrugged. “I do not understand why I have to open the card always first?”

“Because it’s just the way it’s done,” Sarah told him. She looked at Sophia. “Back me up on this.”

Sophia didn’t want to get involved in this. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it does,” Sarah said. “Card first, then the gift. That’s just the way of things.”

Edwin opened the card and looked inside. “Chris, you forgot to write in it.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Chriiiiiis,” she said in exasperation. “Go get a pen and write in your dad’s card.”

Chris hastily took the card off of his dad and practically ran out of the room while their Mom rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe he did that,” she said. “All he had to do was write in it, and he couldn’t even manage that.”

Edwin wasn’t too fussed. “I do not think it is that big a problem.”

“Do you think he’s on drugs or something?” Sarah asked them.

Sophia came to her brother’s defense. “He’s a teenager. We were all like that at his age.”

Sarah disagreed. “I don’t remember forgetting to write on someone’s birthday card.”

“Well no, but I don’t think Chris does drugs. Unless he’s changed since I left. He barely leaves the house. He’s always on his Playstation.”

Sarah had to concede on that point. “I suppose you’re right. I just wish he had friends outside of that games machine.”

They fell silent as Chris stepped back into the room and gave his dad the card back.

“It is very nice,” Edwin said as he stood up and placed it on the mantelpiece with the other cards.

By the time he had turned around, Chris was gone, and they all knew he had probably gone to play on his games console. They also knew that they wouldn’t see him again until dinner was on the table.

The rest of them sat in the living room and chatted over the next couple of hours before Sarah excused herself to start dinner. Sophia offered to help, but Sarah turned her down, saying that she would handle it.

The rest of the morning went by quickly, and for the first time since Sophia had moved out, the whole family was sat around the dining table.

The Bandeja Paisa certainly smelled different than what Sophia remembered. Then again, it changed with nearly every iteration as Mom tried to get it closer to how it would be made in Colombia.

Having a taste, she honestly couldn’t say she was particularly fond of it and by the look on Chris’ face, neither was he. Their dad, however, loved it.

“This is the best yet,” he cried out. “It almost tastes as I remember.”

Sarah seemed pleased. “I’m glad you like it.” She looked at Chris then to Sophia. “How about you two?”

Chris shrugged. “It’s okay I guess,” he mumbled.

Sophia looked down at her plate. “Well, it’s interesting.”

“Neither of you likes it,” Sarah realized.

Sophia tried to be diplomatic. “It’s Dad’s birthday. He likes it, so that’s good enough for me.”

“I love it,” Edwin said. “Might be better than what I had back home.”

Sarah smiled broadly at the compliment. “Well, I think we have a winner,” she said. “The rest of you will just have to deal.”

Sophia didn’t mind. It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t something she found all that appetizing. But the meal hadn’t been made for her or her brother, it had been made for her dad.

Soon they had all finished eating. Well, not quite. Chris picked away at his food for a good five minutes before he finally finished everything on his plate. The only one who wanted dessert was Chris, who got a candy bar from the refrigerator before bemoaning the fact that he had to do the dishes. Despite their Mom trying to dissuade her, Sophia decided to help.

With her washing and Chris drying, everything was cleaned and put away in no time. With the final item in the cupboard, her brother headed back upstairs while she returned to the living room.

“So,” Sarah began as Sophia sat down on the sofa. “When are you setting off back to the city?”

“I was thinking tonight after dinner,” Sophia told them as she adjusted her bra under her top, which seemed to be getting even tighter. “Can’t leave it too late, though. Gotta be up early tomorrow for college.”

Her dad joined in on the conversation. “How is the university going? You finding Physics good?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m finding it difficult. It’s not at all like it was in high school.”

Her Mom offered support in her own way. “I don’t think I’m smart enough to do physics. Involves a lot of math, right?”

“I don’t think I can either,” Sophia admitted. “I feel like an idiot, surrounded by smart people.”

Her father dismissed her concern. “You are not an idiot. Just keep working hard, and you will pass. Do not give up.”

“Dad, I’m not giving up. Just being honest. I find it really hard, but I’m managing to keep up.” _Somewhat_ , she then added mentally.

“You’ll pass,” Sarah encouraged.

Edwin agreed. “Of course she will.”

Sophia was grateful for their encouragement. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.”

“No need,” Sarah said. “It’s your own hard work that’ll see you through.”

“I Won’t give up I promise you,” Sophia said with determination.

“We know,” her Mom said.

It meant a lot to Sophia to know that her parents had so much faith in her. It made her only want to try harder and not only pass but to get the highest grades that she possibly could. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she would damn well try.

What she needed was more time. It just wasn’t clicking with her. Maybe it was the way the professor taught it or perhaps it was something else?

She then had an epiphany. Maybe Mark could help her? That was if Brooke hadn’t completely ruined it for her. Mark still hadn’t sent a message back, and she was worried that her friend’s little stunt of taking a half-naked picture of her asleep might have done damage.

Sophia pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked it to see that Brooke had sent another message. Noting it, she decided that she would read and respond later. Right now she wanted to spend her time with her parents, not chastising Brooke.

“ **Destroy them.”**

Sophia lurched as she heard the voice from her dream. It was loud yet soft as though it was being whispered directly into her hears.

“Something wrong?” her dad asked her.

Quickly, Sophia shook her head as she put her phone back in her pocket. “Just got a shiver.”

“Are you cold?” her Mom asked.

“No, of course not,” Sophia said. “Just haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Stress from university?” Edwin inquired.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Her Mom rested a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe that’s why you’re struggling so much. Try and relax, and your head will clear.”

“I know, but that’s easier said than done.” Sophia shrugged. “But I’ll try.”

**“ They are beneath you. Insects to be crushed beneath your soles!” ** the voice shouted in her mind.

Sophia stood up quickly, the sudden ‘sound’ catching her off-guard. “You’re right,” she said. Her bra now felt so tight that she was struggling to breathe.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked in concern.

She felt her bra strap snap having finally given up its fight against her breasts. It was liberating, yet only filled her with more dread. She honestly thought she was going insane. She looked at her empty wrist, despite not having worn a watch since she was a kid.

“Did your bra just break?” her Mom asked, looking down at her chest.

“Look at the time, I’d better be off,” Sophia said, quickly rushing out of the room into the main hall by the front door. She went to put on her shoes but found that they didn’t fit. What the hell was happening to her?

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked as she followed her through. “Did you get bad news on your phone or something?”

Sophia didn’t look around as she twisted the key in the door and pulled it open. “No, nothing like that. I just realized that I have to get back to the apartment. I left the oven on.” She quickly stepped outside and hurried to her car.

Her Mom stood at the door with her footwear in her hands. “You haven’t even put your shoes on,” she called after her.

“What are you doing!?” her dad shouted. “Where are you going?”

Sophia ignored them as she unlocked her car door and climbed inside. The seat felt like it was too far forward, but she didn’t have time to adjust it, not with her parents running towards her.

**“** **Crush them!”** the voice screamed in her head.

Starting the car, she put her foot down. The tires squealed as they lost traction under the heavy acceleration as she sped off down the street.

It all felt surreal as though somehow she had transitioned from reality into a dream. Maybe this was a dream? She hoped so because the reality she was experiencing right now wasn’t even possible. She couldn’t be growing, not in sudden bursts, not this quickly. That’s not how it worked.

But the longer she drove, the more she realized this wasn’t a dream. Something was happening to her, something she couldn’t explain. She doubted anyone could explain it. It was positively unexplainable. Unless the stress had finally gotten to her and she was finally cracking up.

After driving for a good thirty minutes, she pulled off of the highway and into a gas station where she adjusted her car seat, giving herself more room. She then got out of the car and headed inside to the bathroom.

With the door locked, she lifted her top up, letting her ruined bra fall loosely to the floor where she left it. After filling up her car and paying the attendant, she sat in her car and checked her phone.

She already had thirty missed messages and calls from her mother. Her phone was still on silent, so she almost missed it as another came through.

With a sigh, she answered it. “Hello?”

“It’s _Mom. What’s wrong? If you need help, then we’re here for you. Just talk to me. What’s going on?”_

“I don’t know, Mom,” she said, trying to hold back the tears.

“ _How can you not know? You didn’t run off like that for no reason. We can help.”_

Sophia didn’t know what to tell her. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“ _What is happening, Sophia? Tell me, and I can help,”_ _her mother pleaded._

“I couldn’t get my shoes on,” Sophia said, her hands starting to shake. “They were too small.”

“ _What do you mean?”_

“My bra snapped.”

“ _I don’t understand?”_ _her mother said, sounding confused._ _“What’s_ _going on?”_

“I grew, just like the dream.”

“ _What dream?”_

“At least the voice has stopped,” Sophia said rubbing her wet eyes.

“Voice _? What voice? You’re scaring me.”_

“I’m scaring myself. Mom, I love you and Dad. I even love Chris. Tell them that, okay, Mom?”

“ _Sophia?”_

She hung up and shoved her phone into the glove-box.

For the next five minutes, she sat there, trying to calm herself down. This proved difficult, especially when she found that she had to adjust her rear-view mirror as it was no longer at the correct angle for her new height.

Finally, after a few more minutes, she decided she needed to keep going. Releasing the parking brake, she left the gas station and headed back onto the highway, her destination unknown. She needed time to think, and at that moment the thought of heading back home or to her apartment didn’t appeal to her, not before she was sure that her condition wasn’t going to get worse.

What Sophia didn’t realize was that this was only the beginning, and the world would never be the same again.


	4. The Laws of Physics

Sophia had almost crashed her car.

She had been driving when suddenly the button on her jeans had shot off, bounced off the steering wheel and had struck her in the face, causing her to swerve where she had nearly hit a tree. Luckily, she had missed it, but the event had shaken her up so badly that she hadn’t been able to continue.  Not that she wasn’t shaken up already due to the impossible nature of what was happening to her.

Since pulling onto the grass almost an hour ago, she had sat there resting her head on the steering wheel wondering why? Why was this happening to her? _How_ was this happening?

A scarce few people had stopped to ask if she was okay, and each time she had given the same response, that she had been driving for a few hours and needed to take a break.

Finally, she sat back and looked into the rearview mirror and found that yet again, she had to adjust it. She did but wasn’t sure why she bothered. She wasn’t going anywhere at least not at that moment.

With an exasperated sigh, she leaned over and pulled open the glove box, retrieving her phone. She checked it, finding over a hundred messages and two dozen missed calls. Some were from Brooke.

She decided to check the last message, which was from her friend.

It read:

** ur mom called said u left in a panic n wont answer calls or anything. Shes worried. Wat up? **

Sophia threw her phone down onto the passenger seat. She wished that she could go back in time and change things. If only she had told them that she had to set off after dinner, then no one would have known anything was wrong. But then again, she didn’t know anything was wrong apart from the strange dreams.

No, that was a lie. Sophia knew she was getting bigger, she just hadn’t wanted to accept it. Not only had her bra not fit, but she’d struggled to get her jeans on. But she was right to not believe it, right? People don’t just start growing for no reason and certainly not to such an extent.

Her life had become absolutely fucked, and it had only taken a single day. How did she explain this? Strange dreams with a strange voice that had suddenly started talking to her when she was awake? That she had grown suddenly? At least she wasn’t the giantess that she’d been in the dreams. At least not yet anyway.

No, that wouldn’t happen. It  _ couldn’t  _ _ h _ appen. It wasn’t physically possible to be twenty-five feet tall, let alone fifty or a hundred. She’d be crushed under her own weight. Her limbs would snap, and her heart would fail. It was basic biology and physics. But what had already happened went against both. She didn’t know how tall she was right now, but she felt taller, and her clothes were tighter. She had already left her bra  in the gas station bathroom after it had snapped and lost the button on her jeans. Her top also felt constrictive, and she could see in the mirror the perfect outline of her breasts and nipples. She could even see the shape of her areolas, her top was that tight.

Deciding she wanted to know what time it was, she picked her phone back up and checked. It was almost six in the evening, meaning that she had been there for well over an hour. It didn’t feel that long, but nevertheless, it had been. Even so, she wasn’t ready to continue on, not yet at least. She still needed time to come to terms with the reality of her situation, if that was even possible. How could she come to terms with it? She was gaining height and presumably mass out of nowhere. Unless she wasn’t gaining mass? If that was the case, then the bigger she got, the more fragile she would get as a result. She would be like a giant made of glass.

Tomorrow she was meant to be back at college, but she honestly didn’t know how she could. Not when she had clearly caught some bizarre disease somehow. Her first thought was that it had to be genetic, but she outright dismissed it. She knew of no one that had grown a couple of inches in a single day. That was something that couldn’t happen.

Right?

Though clearly, it could because it had. Unless this was all in her head and she was losing her mind.

Feeling that she needed air, Sophia got out of her car and leaned on the roof, her head resting on her forearms. Maybe she should go to the hospital? No, there was no maybe about it, she should definitely go and get a checkup just to see what was happening to her. It was too far to drive back to Danbury, and besides she didn’t think she could face her parents, so the best bet was to continue on back to the city.

But she didn’t go. Instead, she stood there leaning against her car until it started to grow dark. With every vehicle that went past, she felt it gently rock. It was almost soothing. One of the many passing cars pulled up behind hers, and a man got out. Sophia didn’t even look at him, hoping that he would just leave. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

“You okay?” he asked as he approached.

She glanced at him but said nothing.

“Something wrong? Has your car broken down? Are you ill?”

She stood up and turned to face him, finding that he was around the same height as her. At least currently. She was about to ask how tall he was when she noticed his eyes bulge slightly as he looked straight at her chest. She had forgotten her top was now way too small, accentuating every curve, including defining the shape of her nipples.

She folded her arms to cover herself and asked the question on her mind. “How tall are you?”

He blinked as he looked back up at her face, confused and a little flushed. “What?”

“How tall are you?” she asked again.

“Five-eleven,” he answered. “Why?”

“Fucking Christ!” she shouted out as she climbed back into her car. “A full fucking foot taller.”

“Taller than what?” he questioned, even more confused, as he stepped up to her window. “Do you need me to call an ambulance or something?”

**“ Kill him,” ** the voice demanded, returning out of nowhere.

Sophia covered her ears, but she couldn’t block out the voice. It was as though it were speaking from inside her head.

**“ Crush him! Destroy him. Feel the pleasure of destruction ** ** and  ** ** of death!” **

“No, I won’t hurt him,” she cried out, holding her head tighter.

“Fuck this,” the guy said, backing away. “You’re crazy.”

Then the car began to shrink. Or rather she began to grow.

Her head was pushed sideways as it hit the roof and her legs became jammed in the foot-well, her clothes practically exploding off of her. Sophia feared she was going to be crushed as her body pressed against the inside of the car. Thankfully, it was the car that gave way and not her bones, as her now naked expanding form exploded free of the confines of the vehicle, sending chunks of metal, glass and plastic flying everywhere.

Losing her balance, she fell forward, crushing what was left of her car in a screech of twisting metal. With some effort, she rolled to the side onto the grass, hearing tires screaming as the man sped past.

This was a literal nightmare come to life. Her strange dreams had become a horrific reality.

Or had they?

This had to be a dream, too, right? She had to be dreaming. Yes, this was a dream that was the only thing that made sense. This was a very long dream, like none she had ever had before. That was the only explanation, it had to be because what was currently happening to her went against everything she believed in and that she understood about reality.

Or maybe not. Even her other dreams of being a giantess, strange as they were, had felt somewhat like dreams. But this really honestly did seem real and not like any dream she had ever had before in her entire life. But again, this was impossible, so it had to be a dream. But what if this wasn’t a dream, though? What if this was really happening?

“The laws of physics,” she said to herself as she began to stand up. “This is not possible, so it has to be a dream.”

She saw a car further down the road slam its brakes on and make a U-turn, heading the back the other way as fast as it could. She could only imagine what she looked like. From their point of view, she was a giant woman standing over a crushed car. She would be terrified too if she came across that.

She took a step back only for her foot to land on her car. Her face scrunched up in pain as the twisted metal dug into her sole. With a yelp, she fell backwards, the road smashing under her weight.

Sophia checked the bottom of her foot, expecting to see blood. Instead, she saw nothing. Not wanting to be seen, she made her way towards the treeline, finding that she now stood taller than them.

“I’ll never complain about my height ever again,” she said as she continued on into the woods.

**“ Go to the city!” ** the voice commanded.

Sophia ignored it as she pushed on deeper into the trees.

**“ Crush it! Turn the people into paste beneath your feet.”**

“Shut the fuck up!” Sophia yelled, surprised by the power and volume of her own voice. It made her feel strong. “Shut up!” she repeated. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but just shut the fuck up and stop telling me to murder people. I won’t do it!”

**“ Feel the lust for destruction. Help end this world like so many others before it!”**

Sophia felt a chill run down her back. Other worlds, as in aliens? This had happened before? No, this was a dream.

“Just a dream,” she verbalized.

**“ Yes,” ** the voice said. “ ** Just a dream. Be among the first to lay waste to all that is around you. It is just a dream, so no one will be harmed.” **

A cold sweat began to form on her brow. For some reason, the voice confirming that this was a dream only made her believe the opposite was true. But it couldn’t be. She was taller than the trees, and by all that she knew, she should be unable to physically survive at this scale.

The whole situation was messing with her head. She just wanted it to end. She just wanted to wake up in bed and find out that this was all a horrible nightmare. Honestly, she believed if she told herself that this wasn’t really happening enough times that it would turn out not to be real. But deep down in her gut, she knew this was really happening, and she simply couldn’t process it.

 **“ It is just a dream,”** the voice repeated. “ **You can do whatever you want.”**

“I want to wake up!” she shouted out.

The voice began to grow frustrated. “ ** You have been bestowed with a gift. Use it!” **

“No!” Sophia screamed out. “I don’t want it!”

**“ Use it.”**

“Take it away!”

**“** ** _Use_ ** ** it!”  ** the voice said more forcefully.

“I won’t do what you want me to do. I’m not a murderer! I don’t want this. I want to be normal. Just take this away, please!”

“ **You wish to give up such a gift? A gift so many wish they had?”**

“Then let them have it!” Sophia shouted out, her booming voice echoing in the sky. “I won’t do what you want, I refuse.”

“ **For now, you do. But your will shall weaken, and you shall become an agent of chaos and destruction. It is our decree and what we command.”**

“You can command whatever you want you psycho. I won’t do it!” Sophia said firmly. “So you can fuck off with this shit and turn me back to normal, because I won’t kill people, not for my own pleasure and definitely not for yours!”

“ **It seems you have a strong will. Stronger than we expected.”**

“Fucking right, I do you fucker!” she screamed. “So take this shit away and go fuck yourself!”

**“ If that is your wish, then** ** we shall.” **

Sophia waited, but she did not shrink back down to normal height. Instead, she began to feel a swelling pain. First in her legs, then in her back. Her arms became so heavy they felt like they were going to tear themselves off.

The voice continued. “ ** Without our gift, your body will crush itself.” **

“Shrink me,” she pleaded. “Turn me back to normal, please.”

**“ That ability was part of the gift. ** ** You rejected it, and so you shall die.” **

The pain in her body increased until it became agonizing. She tried to move, but the slight movement of her arm caused the bones within to shatter under the stresses, and she found herself falling, the ground rising up towards her as if slow motion. Sophia honestly wondered if she was going to die.

As she hit the hard dirt, it felt as though every bone shattered like porcelain. All she knew was pain, and with that pain brought a clarity and a realization to the thought that had been plaguing the back of her mind.

This was not a dream, it never truly was.

As the pain grew dull, and her mind grew foggy, her thoughts fell onto her family. This was her father’s birthday, and she had ruined it. Now this day which was meant to be special would only be a reminder to him and his family of her death. Strangely, that was her only regret. Not necessarily that she was dying, but of how it would hurt those that she had left behind.

As her consciousness began to slip away, she thought she heard a new voice. One that was no harsh or commanding like the other. This one was softer, caring, beautiful, and it said,  **“** ** **You** ** ** **shall** ** ** **be reborn.”** **


	5. Me and Myself

Chirping, that’s what Sophia could hear. All around her there was nothing but the chirping of the birds.  Sophia found this rather unusual. Was her window open? They seemed a little close, and they sounded like they were all around her, unless the birds were in her room somehow?

Slowly, Sophia opened her eyes to see something she had never expected. Stood above, peering down was a deer. The creature raised its head as she screamed out in surprise, but it didn’t flee or run. It just stood there staring down at her.

“I think I shit myself,” she said as she sat up. “Where am I?”

She looked around to see nothing but trees. She was clearly in a forest, but where?

That was when she realized she was naked. “What the fuck?”

Slowly, she stood up, her balance uneasy. The deer backed up a few paces but continued to watch her as she held her head. She began to recollect what had happened, or at least the bizarre hallucination she must have had because there was no way any of that was real.

“What did Mom put in that food?” she asked no one. “That was one fucked up dream.”

She stumbled over to a nearby tree and leaned on it for support. Her head was starting to spin, and it was making her uneasy on her feet. Whatever had happened to her, she still wasn’t quite over it yet, and without her phone, she had no way of calling for help. That meant for the time being she was on her own.

“I hope no one saw me parading about naked while thinking I was fifty feet tall,” she mumbled under her breath. “Something I ate must have gone bad.”

Sophia looked back at the deer, which was still watching her intently. Keeping her movements slow, she approached it. The animal kept on staring, seemingly not at all bothered by her presence. She reached out and began to stroke its head, which she was surprised it allowed her to do. Either the deer was used to people, or it was very trusting. Either way, it was letting her pet it.

“Thanks for watching over me, buddy,” she said softly, as she ran her hand down the nape of its neck. “I have to go now. I hope I left my car and my clothes around here somewhere.” She turned and began to walk away, glancing back momentarily to see the deer still staring at her.

“I’ll see you around.”

As Sophia wandered through the woods, she noticed there were several felled trees around, which almost looked like something had recently knocked them down. Their branches were still full of leaves, and the splinters of bark seemed fresh. The sight unsettled her, but not as much as what she came across not a minute later.

Imprinted into the ground was a giant footprint. It was longer than she was tall, and it was not the only one. Maybe twenty feet behind it was another one. For several minutes Sophia stood staring at them in horror. These were her footprints from last night. It hadn’t been a dream.

With a deep sense of unease, she began to follow the footprints to see where they led, which was up a shallow incline. As she followed them, she noticed that the spacing between the imprints was getting further apart, but not only that, the footprints themselves were getting larger.

As she approached the crest of the hill, she began to see something flesh-colored through the trees. She stopped and stared, almost not daring to wonder what it was. Sweat began to form on her brow despite not feeling hot. What she did feel was sick.

Despite her inner voice telling her not to, she began to approach. The closer she got, the more it became clear that the mass wasn’t just the color of flesh but actually _was_ flesh, and it appeared that whatever it was, was not only human; at least in form, but was also crumpled on the ground facing away from her. What was most unsettling, despite the size, was how deformed it looked. The spine looked twisted, and one of the arms was bent behind and appeared to have had every bone shattered. Another thing that she found disturbing was the long black hair that draped across its neck, and it was the same color and length as her own hair.

She moved closer, making her way slowly around the top of the head to the front. Her heart was pounding like she had run a marathon as the forehead came into view. She felt increasingly ill as more of the face that came into view. Sophia closed her eyes as she took the final steps. She already knew who the face belonged to, despite it being impossible.

With a sharp intake of breath, she plucked up the courage and opened her eyes. There in front of her was her own gigantic, deformed, and very dead face.

With a heave, Sophia began to wretch. Her nightmare was real, and she was dead. Did that mean she was now a ghost? The notion felt stupid, but how else could she explain the fact that she was in front of her own mangled corpse?

No, this was insane. She had to be still dreaming, right? There was no way that she was dead, and there was no way she had turned into a giantess. It was not only ridiculous, but it was insane and impossible.

Right?

“This is fucked.”

She reached out her hand as she slowly moved closer. She jumped in surprise as her hand made contact. The skin felt hard and cold like smooth stone or metal. Its texture was nothing at all like flesh which is what she had expected.

She ran her hand along the side of the face and down past the nose towards the mouth. The jaw was twisted from where it had impacted against the ground. The lips, like the rest of the skin, felt unnaturally hard to the touch, which only further unsettled her.

Glancing to her right, she caught a rather unpleasant sight up her own nose. She could easily crawl inside a nostril if she wanted but knew that if she tried, then she would probably get stuck. The thought of getting stuck up her own nose almost made her laugh, but instead, she began to cry.

If this giant dead body was her, then who the fuck was she? Was she even real? She had already guessed that she might be a ghost, but she didn’t feel like one. She wasn’t translucent, and she could feel the cold breeze on her bare skin. If she was alive and she was herself, then who was the giant corpse in front of her? Was it also her? How did that work? How did she get this new body? What the absolute fuck was going on?

There were thousands of questions running through her head, and she had no answers. Nothing made sense, and it was driving her insane. How could it be real? How could any of it be real?

Sophia punched her giant self in the face, only to accomplish nothing but to hurt her fist. Her response was to beat her giant face over and over again until her knuckles started to bleed. She felt angry. She was supposed to be at college right now, but instead, she was in the woods punching herself in the face.

The only positive she could think of was that she was now normal-sized. Or at the very least, she thought she was. It was hard to tell. For all she knew, she could be seven feet tall, and she wouldn’t know, not without a point of reference, and trees weren’t a good point of reference.

She put that last thought out of her head. She needed to get back to her apartment and get some clothes without being seen. If she didn’t, she would not only suffer immense embarrassment but also risk being arrested for indecent exposure. The problem was that she didn’t think that was even possible. There was no way she could get to Boston, let alone to her apartment without being seen. Not unless she could turn invisible.

“Why is this happening to me?” Sophia asked out loud.

There was no answer. Honestly, she hadn’t really expected one. She just wanted to get a PhD, get a good-paying job and live her life. What she didn’t want was to have this crazy shit ruin everything. She just wanted to be normal.

This was all wrong, all of it. There was no way she was stood in front of her giant self, absolutely no way. She had to be crazy. She _had_ to be. There was no other explanation. At least none that made the slightest bit of sense.

The air began to feel a little thin. She began to breathe deeper, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get enough air. She began to feel light-headed, and the forest around her began to spin. She was having a panic attack, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She took a step back, turned and ran. It felt like her understanding of reality was crumbling away all around her. It was impossible. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t.

Sophia continued to run, ignoring the discomfort in her bare feet and the branches that snapped at her face. She needed to get away from there. It wasn’t right. She wanted to put as much distance between her and her corpse as possible. She had to escape it.

But there was no escape, no matter how far she ran.

Eventually, she began to grow fatigued and had to slow to a breathless walk. Her bare feet hurt from the rough ground, and she felt cold from the lack of clothing, which in turn made her nipples uncomfortably hard.

Coming across a nearby fallen tree trunk, Sophia sat down and held her head in her hands. If only she had her phone on her, she would be able to call someone, probably her mom. She wasn’t sure how she could explain what had happened to her, not and have her believe it. But then again, maybe she didn’t need to? There was a great giant fuck-off corpse of herself she could show as proof. But that only brought more problems. If that corpse was, in fact, her, then who was she right now? She shook the thought from her mind. She was going around and around in circles with her line of thinking. What she needed to do was to retrace the last few days and try and understand what exactly was happening to her, if that was even possible.

Firstly, there had been the strange dreams. They had started on Friday night. There was also the voice. The one who encouraged her, and even rewarded her for destruction and death, at least in the dreams. Then there was the comment her father had made or had it been her mother that had mentioned her growth spurt? She couldn’t quite remember, but one of them had mentioned it. Then the voice had spoken to her outside her dream, and she had begun to grow. That had been when she had fled. It had stopped soon after that, but it had returned a few hours later when she had exploded out of her car. The voice had been malevolent and evil. But there had also been another voice, a softer, warmer voice.

Sophia stood up sharply and began to pace back and forth. What had the voice said? She couldn’t quite remember, but she did know that it was after the evil voice had taken something away from her. Things started to make sense the more she remembered. She had begun to feel heavy, and she had fallen, smashing all of her bones due to her mass and sheer weight.

“Of course,” Sophia said out loud. No one could be as big as she had been. It was impossible, at least naturally. So whatever the evil voice had taken from her must have been the ability to exist at that scale causing her to die quickly. But what of the other voice? It had said something, but she couldn’t quite remember. She felt like it was somehow important that she was missing something by not knowing.

Then it came to her. “You shall be reborn,” she said out loud.

On its own it meant nothing, but after meeting her own giant corpse, it made perfect sense, or at least as much sense this whole situation could make. She had died, and now she was something new. But did that mean she was normal again? She hadn’t heard either voice since, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything or that they were gone.

She needed answers, but there were none. She couldn’t recall anything in history about there being giants apart from the old David and Goliath Bible story. There were, of course, claims that people had dug up giant corpses, but they had all proven to be fake. But what if all of them weren’t fake? What if some real ones got overlooked because of all the fakes? Sophia shook her head, clearing her mind of the thought. If there had been any that were real, then they would have had more evidence than some dodgy photographs, especially in this day in age.

Unless, of course, the government was secretly covering it up? Again, if that were the case, then more than one country would have to be in collusion and the more that had to be in on it, the less likely it was that it was true.

Sophia was brought out of her thoughts by a strange sound on the wind. She stopped pacing and looked up towards the sky. It sounded almost like helicopters, and it was getting louder.

After moving into a clearing, she got a better look. They _were_ helicopters, Chinooks to be exact and they were carrying what appeared to be military vehicles underneath. Accompanying them were several attack helicopters, all armed and ready. It was apparent they were headed somewhere and with some urgency. That alone was enough to make her worry. Were they looking for her? No doubt she had caused quite the stir for those that had seen her.

**“ They will die,” ** a voice said suddenly  in her mind . It was not the malevolent voice from before; it sounded  soft, sweet and deeply saddened  by something.

“Who are you?” Sophia called out. “What do you want?”

 **“ A darkness has returned to this world, young one,”** **the voice told her.** **“You have witnessed its power first hand, yet you rejected it.** **Something very few it chooses has the willpower or want to do. Most are already too far gone to see reason, which is why the Darkness chooses them. But you were a rare anomaly. A choice made in error.”**

“I died,” Sophia said, feeling a little odd talking to the disembodied voice. “It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. I felt my bones shatter.” She shuddered at the memory.

**“ Your previous form was what died. You were born anew,” ** ** the soothing voice said. **

“What does that mean?” Sophia asked.

**“ We cannot say, ** ** due to the complexities and your current understanding of the universe, What we can say is that  ** ** you have the ability to help stop the  ** ** D ** ** arkness.  ** ** Unfortunately, w ** ** e have grown weak from trying to counter  ** ** it ** ** and can only converse for a short while. That while is nearly up for now.” **

“Ability? I don’t want any abilities. I want everything to be back to normal.”

**“ The old normal is something you ** ** shall ** ** never know again. Now go to the city. They all need your help.  ** ** A ** ** s will your friend Brooke.” **

That alarmed her. “You know about Brooke?”

**“ Go now, before it ** ** i ** ** s too late.  ** ** Goodbye for now, Sophia Moreno.” **

“What do you mean?” Sophia called out. “What’s going on? Why do they need my help? Hell, how can I even help, I’m just one person?”

There was no answer, only the sounds of jets roaring overhead, heading in the same direction the helicopters were headed a scarce few minutes prior.

It was clear that something was happening and the voice had said that they needed her help, that Brooke needed her help. But help from what? She didn’t even know why the army was flying overhead, but she could assume it was both bad and that they were headed to the Greater Boston area. That meant she had a direction. Now the problem was that she was still completely and utterly naked. It was almost funny that the disembodied voice had been powerful enough to reincarnate her, but not enough to give her at the very least some underwear to cover her modesty.

Sophia let out a sigh as she began to walk forwards. Her first focus was finding something to wear. From there she had to get home to Boston. She had to make sure that above all else that Brooke was safe.


	6. Some Mountains Move

After hopping over the rear fence, Sophia made her way over to the clothesline and quickly grabbed a pair of track pants and a t-shirt before moving behind the garden shed, hoping that no one had seen her. She didn’t fancy having an altercation, especially when she knew she was in the wrong. Still, she needed clothes, even if she did have to steal them.

Unlike further west, there wasn’t a whole lot of pure wilderness out here. There was barely a mile without a house or a town, which had made getting this far rather tricky. Several times she had nearly been spotted by the gridlock of traffic that seemed to occupy every highway, and she doubted she could easily explain away her nakedness.

Now dressed, she awkwardly climbed back over the rear fence and quickly made her way down to the road where she walked along the sidewalk trying to look as casual as possible. Or at least as casual as someone walking barefoot could look.

From here, Boston was maybe thirty miles away given that she was in or near either Sudbury or Framingham. Too far to walk, which meant that she needed transport of some kind. She had no cash on her, so that meant that a taxi was out of the question, and if something serious was happening in Boston, then that meant that it was unlikely that she would be able to get a ride there regardless.

So how did she get there? She had no idea other than walk, or steal a bicycle? Or maybe even a car? The problem was, she didn’t know how to hot-wire a car. She didn’t even know if a modern car could be hot-wired. Besides, she wasn’t quite at that point. At least not yet.

She honestly didn’t know why she was so intent on getting to Boston, other than for Brooke. But indeed if there were a problem, Brooke would get out of the city, right? Unless she was trapped? The strange ephemeral voice had told her that she was the only one that could stop what was happening there, or at least had indicated it. For all she knew, nothing was happening. But then if that was the case, where had the military been going and for what reason? No, she had to go. She felt compelled to go, either because it was her own choice or because of the influence of whatever had resurrected her. She just wished that it had brought her back to life a little closer to Boston.

Ten minutes passed when a car slowed and began to pace her.

“Do you need a lift?” he asked her.

She stopped and looked at him. “What makes you think that?”

“For one thing, you’re not wearing any shoes,” he pointed out, gesturing down at her feet. “You lose ’em or something?”

Sophia looked down at her bare feet but said nothing. It wasn’t like she could tell him why she lacked footwear. He probably wouldn’t believe her if she did tell him, so there was no point.

The man continued. “I’m getting outta here and heading to my brother’s place outta state.”

“Why?” she asked, despite not being that interested.

“You ain’t heard?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“No. Why, what’s going on?”

“A lot of folks thinks it’s fake, but I’m not so sure. The highways outta Boston are gridlocked.”

“I need to get to Boston,” she told him, nervously anticipating what he was going to say next.

“Not with the thirty-foot tall giant chicks destroying and killing everything in their path you ain’t.”

That was not what she wanted to hear. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“You ain’t seen the news? Some giant naked girls are going on a rampage. People in Boston are either hiding or leaving. Cops can’t do shit, either. Seem’s they’re bulletproof.”

“I need to get to Boston,” Sophia repeated, her heart starting to race.

“Didn’t you hear what I just told ya?”

“I heard,” she replied.

He shrugged. “Fine, don’t believe me. Can’t blame ya. I wouldn’t believe it either.”

He drove off without another word. If the roads out of Boston were gridlocked, then that meant getting there by car was not an option. She had to find another way. Unless she ran there? It was a stupid idea, but at this point, she was all out of good ones.

She began to jog forward, slowly at first then began to pick up the pace. As her jog turned into a run, she realized that she wasn’t becoming tired, at least not as quickly as she had earlier. This came somewhat as a surprise to her.

Despite not being overweight, she wasn’t exactly fit. Apart from that morning when fleeing her own dead body, she hadn’t gone running since she had been in high-school as part of Physical Education class. Back then, it had seemed like torture, but now it felt different. Sure, her breathing and heart-rate had risen, but that was to be expected. What she didn’t expect was for both to remain even. She felt like she could run a marathon.

Sophia bolted across the road back into the trees and continued running, her pace only increasing. Not even a fallen tree stump slowed her down as she used it as a springboard and leaped into the air, clearing several feet. Indestructible was how she felt as she bolted through the woodland. She was going faster than she had ever run before.

Or at least right until she body-slammed a tree.

She laid on the floor, feeling winded. She was glad no one had been around to see her make an absolute idiot out of herself. She was also thankful that she had such an overdeveloped chest as they had acted a little like airbags and diffused the blow. Unfortunately, as a result, they hurt.

After checking that no one was around, she lifted her top to make sure she hadn’t scuffed or bruised them. To her surprise, they looked fine. She gave each one a quick squeeze and found that neither felt particularly sore. They just hurt from the impact. Slowly, she got back to her feet and continued on, albeit this time a lot slower. She didn’t want a repeat performance, so she simply jogged.

It was perhaps a good ten minutes after that when she felt a tremble move through the Earth, followed by a crescendo of screams and shouts. Sophia slowed to a stop and listened intently, only to be almost knocked off of her feet as the ground shook violently beneath her.

That was when she saw her tall above the trees. It was a naked woman, and she towered over her by maybe fifty feet. Thankfully, she hadn’t seen her, but the giant woman definitely had its attention on something.

After raising her leg, the giantess brought it down, causing the ground to shake violently. This time Sophia did fall over with a yelp. She heard more screams and a car horn blaring. The woman then bent over, picked up the car and threw it as though it weighed nothing. The vehicle sailed overhead like a tossed toy before it disappeared out of sight.

With even more screams, Sophia felt overwhelmed. She so desperately wanted to help, but she couldn’t. She didn’t dare face the colossus, yet it was supposedly why the entity had brought her back.

Sophia began to sob. There was no way she could stop a giant. She was only one person and not a particularly tall one at that. She knew she had to do something, but what? Maybe she could lure it away? No, that was madness, but so was the situation she currently found herself in.

With the sounds of more screams and cries for help echoing through the trees, Sophia realized that she had to do something. The entity hadn’t brought her back from the dead to cower and cry. She had been brought back for a reason, and that reason was undoubtedly to fight.

Somehow.

Without further thought, she bolted over towards the giantess and found herself stepping onto a gridlocked highway. The cars were all abandoned, and most appeared to have been crushed flat, presumably by the giantess.

Right now, the colossus was chasing down a group who was trying to flee. Sophia knew they wouldn’t make it. They weren’t fast enough, not even close. The giantess had a stride they couldn’t possibly hope to match. Not seeing any way of getting its attention, she began to check the cars to see if any still had their keys inside them. She hit the jackpot with a Land Rover.

She jumped inside and twisted the ignition before pushing another car out of the way. Burying her foot down, she accelerated hard off-road and towards the ankle of the monster. It was mere moments before she struck that she realized how insane this was. The thought was then literally knocked from her mind as the car crashed into the giantess’s ankle. With a pop, the airbag deployed, hitting her in the face.

Feeling dazed, she sat there for several moments until her head began to clear. It was then she noticed that only one of the giantess’ feet were visible, the other seemed to have vanished at least until she looked up and saw it raised over the car.

“Shit!” Sophia cursed as she scrambled for the door, handle in a panic.

The door swung open, and she bolted out as fast as she could, the Land Rover crushed flat only a few feet behind her. The ground shuddered so violently that she found herself airborne, rolling head over heels before landing on the roof of another car.

The giantess was no longer paying any attention to those fleeing, which was good. What wasn’t good was that the giantess now had her attention firmly on her. The intense glare on the colossus’s face didn’t ease Sophia’s fears. In fact, it did quite the opposite.

“I’ll crush you!” the woman bellowed out as she raised her leg. Her voice was still surprisingly feminine, if very, very loud.

Knowing that the giantess was going to crush her, Sophia rolled off of the roof and dove for the grass. The foot impacted down hard and with a ferocity that Sophia had never experienced before in her life. The ground seemed to jump up to hit her, sending her rolling awkwardly until she struck a tree.

The situation reminded her of a video game her brother used to play, but she didn’t have a magic sword that could find this colossus’s weaknesses. No, this was an actual fight for survival, and Sophia had no clue as to how she was going to survive.

Thankfully, the fight took a turn in her favor.

She heard the sounds of helicopters on the wind, followed by what sounded like rockets. The giantess held up her hands to shield her face as explosions erupted against her palms and along her forearm.

As the attack helicopters came into view overhead, Sophia used the distraction and ran. She didn’t get far, though as the ground began to tremor, causing her to lose balance and fall flat on her face. She rolled over to see the giantess throw out her arm at the first helicopter. It exploded into a fiery inferno as her fist effortlessly connected with it.

The colossal woman then turned her attention to the second, which began to ascend rapidly. As it did so, it fired off its front cannon which didn’t even faze the giantess. It then fired off a few missiles, which exploded against the target’s massive hands which she used to shield her face.

Clambering to her feet, Sophia began to back away. She was shocked by the fact that the missiles seemed to do next to nothing. It was like the helicopter was firing Nerf darts. It was utterly ineffective, and if they couldn’t do anything against this monster, then what was she meant to do? That was why the entity had resurrected her, right? At that moment she wasn’t so sure. She had no idea what she could even do except run away. Could she grow? She had no idea how. The voice in her head hadn’t told her anything about her power set. The voice had been next to useless in that regard.

“Think,” she said to herself before realizing something else. Where had this sudden bravery come from? Shouldn’t she be running terrified like everyone else?

The truth was she was scared. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and her hands were shaking. But she was still stood there trying to stop a mountain, which was futile, especially when this mountain moved.

The attack helicopter fired some more missiles, and the giantess returned the gesture by leaping up into the air. Sophia’s mouth fell agape as she saw the figure reach out and swat the second helicopter out of the air like a fly.

It was only when the colossal woman began to descend that Sophia realized the coming Earthquake was not going to be fun. She tried to brace herself, but nothing could have prepared her for the shockwave that followed.

The ground rippled outward as though it were water and someone had just thrown a boulder into it. The impact threw Sophia clear into the air, and she found herself tumbling like a ragdoll. With a yelp and a cry of pain, she bashed her head into the side of a tree as she came hurtling back down.

After that, her consciousness was tenuous at best. She was aware that she was awake, or she believed she was. She just had no idea where she was or what was happening.

She was aware of something wrapping around her, constricting her arms and legs. At first, she was unsure what it was, but as her vision cleared, she was met by the gaze of a giant face. That’s when it all came back to her.

Sophia’s mouth fell agape as she stared in both shock and terror. She was in the grip of a giantess whose face was twice as tall as her whole body. She began to squirm in an attempt to break free from her grasp. It was useless. She couldn’t possibly hope to break free. She was too strong.

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to do this, please!”

“Do what?” the giantess asked, her voice so loud that it made Sophia’s ears hurt. “Do you mean this?”

The giantess opened her mouth and began to move her towards it. Sophia squirmed more, genuinely afraid that she was going to be eaten. Instead, the giantess laughed, moving her away. Sophia was confident that if she hadn’t been resurrected, then she would have shit herself just then. Thankfully, there was nothing to shit out as she hadn’t eaten in this body yet. It was an odd notion, and one Sophia would have put more thought into in any other circumstance. As it was, her attention was solely on the giantess.

“What to do with you?” the giantess boomed.

“Put me down!” Sophia yelled out. “I haven’t had a shower, I smell and taste like shit!”

The giant woman smiled a sick smile as she began to lower her down. Sophia dared hope that she was going to let her go, but when the colossal woman then spread her vagina with her other hand, she realized what was going to happen.

“No!” Sophia cried out, remembering the first dream she’d had. She had done the same thing, and now it was going to happen to her, but in reality. “Don’t you fucking dare you, bitch!”

“You’re feisty,” the giantess said. “I want to feel you inside me.”

Sophia squirmed as hard as she could as the giant vagina grew closer. This wasn’t exactly how she had planned on dying, though she hadn’t planned on dying the way she had before, either. It was almost funny to think that she had been resurrected only to become a living dildo for some horny giantess.

The colossal woman shoved her inside, and she felt the walls close around her like she was a car in a crusher. It was painful, and it was suffocating. Then something unexpected and downright creepy happened. Tendrils gripped her arms and legs and began to drag her deeper inside. She tried to scream, but her voice was muffled as her whole body was enveloped by something warm and moist.

Panic set in as she realized she couldn’t breathe. Whatever surrounded her was so tight that she couldn’t even struggle. It pressed down on every inch of her body, making it impossible to do anything except to suffocate slowly.

Like the last time, her thoughts fell onto her family. They still had no idea what had happened to her. There was no doubt at all in her mind that her giant deformed body would be found in the woods and that they would believe that was where she had died. Maybe it had been. It was possible that who she was now was just some copy. It didn’t matter now, though, as she was dead regardless.

This was it. This was the end. She doubted she would be lucky enough to be reincarnated twice. She had been given a second chance, and she had effectively wasted it.

Soon her thoughts grew numb, and her consciousness faded. Then there was nothing.


	7. Welcome to Boston

There was liquid all around her, encapsulating her like a baby in the womb. At first, it felt serene, peaceful,  as though there was nothing wrong with the world . At least  that’s how it felt  until Sophia realized that she was suffocating.

With all the strength she could manage, she began to thrash about in a desperate attempt to break free from her confines. Finally, whatever imprisoned her gave way, and she found herself washed out onto the pavement.

Gasping, she tried to breathe, but her throat was blocked. She began to panic, but then, with a heave, she vomited. What came out, however, was not what she expected. Instead of vomit, a strange purple liquid spewed out of her mouth, splattering out as it struck the pavement, including on her naked body.

With shaky limbs, she slowly clambered to her feet and looked around. She was in the Boston Common, and not only that, but she was surrounded by what could only be described as large purple eggs which had to be six to seven feet tall. If she had been thinking clearly, then she would have realized that she had just been birthed from one of them, but her mind was addled. Her thoughts were confused as she tried to piece together the events that had resulted in her being here. She had no memory of anything past driving home from college on Friday evening and stopping off at Wendy’s with Brooke.

After vomiting a second time, Sophia moved away from the eggs with trembling legs. That was when she realized that the buildings surrounding the common were half-collapsed and parts of the road were smashed.

“What the fuck?” Sophia uttered in shock.

Like a river bursting its banks, the memories came back to her for the second time. The dreams, fleeing from her parent’s house, the growing, the voice, her first death, her rebirth, crashing the car into the ankle of the giantess and then her second death.

Sophia buckled over and vomited a third time. This was all too much. Had she been reincarnated again? It didn’t make sense; nothing about this made sense. But right now that was a secondary concern. She had to get home to the apartment.

It was doubtful that Brooke would still be there, but maybe she had left a note or something that would tell her where she had gone? Or better yet, she could call her on the landline. Though that all relied on the apartment building still being in one piece. Looking around, she couldn’t see any giants so that either meant they were gone, were napping, or the military had wiped them out. She hoped it was the last one. She just wanted this to be over with. She wanted her life back.

As she made her way along Boylston Street, Sophia felt strange. The whole scene around her was surreal. It was like an apocalypse with empty and crushed cars scattered all over the road, making it impassable by anything other than by foot.

She sighed a breath of relief as she found an open suitcase with clothes scattered all over the hood of a car. Quickly, she rummaged through them until she found some elasticated pants. She put them on before picking out a plain t-shirt and a pair of sneakers which happened to be on the larger side. They weren’t exactly clean, but it was better than running around in her birthday suit.

Now dressed, Sophia continued through the streets. As she crossed an intersection, she did a shocked double-take as she saw something she had never expected to see, not now and not ever.

Laying there down the street between the rows of buildings was a large pair of tits pointing up at the sky. It was clear that the giantess was laying on her back, and it was also clear that she was alive as she could see the steady rise and fall of her chest as she took breath. Sophia was simply thankful that it was her tits she saw and not her face. She didn’t fancy being seen by one of these monsters, not after how it had gone the last time.

Not wanting to hang around, Sophia increased her pace to a jog. There was no sign of the military. If they were still alive, then that begged the question as to where they were? She couldn’t hear any aircraft or explosions or even gunfire, only the wind. In fact, she had never heard or seen Boston this quiet before. It was downright spooky.

She was glad she had found some sneakers to wear as she walked over some shattered glass from a nearby crushed car. She was tempted to call out for any survivors but knew that one of the giantesses might hear her, and that was the last thing she wanted.

As she turned down another street, she saw an upturned army tank ahead. It was parked on top of some crushed cars, and itself was heavily damaged. Sophia moved closer to find that there was blood dripping out of the armored vehicle. She covered her mouth in horror. She looked around the street and began to see more bodies crushed inside their cars. She staggered back before she turned and ran.

Was everybody dead? Was Brooke dead? Just the thought made tears well up in her eyes. It was a horrible thought, but she knew that it was most likely correct, which only made her feel worse. Why had she wanted to come here? Because the entity that had reincarnated her had told her too? No, it hadn’t just been that. She had wanted to help her friend, but so far she hadn’t even been able to save herself. Her goal was still to get to the apartment. That much, she hoped, she could accomplish.

By the time she made it back to her apartment building, Sophia felt numb to the sight of death and destruction. Thankfully, the place was still standing, though there was a massive crack that ran down the side of the structure. As fast as she could, Sophia headed inside and up to her apartment. The door was wide open, and no one was home which was either a very good sign or very bad.

She picked up the phone to find that it was dead. She slammed it down before heading to the apartment next door to find the same thing. The landline was completely down. That meant she wouldn’t be calling anyone.

With no idea what to do next, Sophia headed back to her apartment and went straight to her bedroom, crashing down onto the bed. She had seen a few movies about the end of the world. None of them had quite been like this, though. The closest was probably Cloverfield, but that was a giant monster, not giant women.

Sophia’s stomach began to rumble. With a sigh, she got back up and made her way to the refrigerator. She pulled it open to see that it was half-empty. She guessed that Brooke had grabbed a lot of it as she had fled. She could only imagine the terror she must have felt, not understanding what was going on. Her only wish was that she had been here to help her.

Sophia grabbed the block of cheese and headed to the breadbox, where she took some rounds of bread. Cutting the cheese, she made herself four sandwiches which she ate over the breadboard. She then checked the refrigerator to find that the soda was gone.

Again she sighed as she took a glass from the cupboard. She made her way over to the sink and turned on the tap. At first, there was nothing, but then dirty water began to pour out. The pipe had been compromised, which wasn’t unsurprising.

“Goddammit!” she yelled out in frustration.

Wanting to get into something more comfortable, she changed into her clothes before she headed back out of the apartment into the neighbor’s. Thankfully, they had a bottle of soda which she took before heading back to her own apartment. After grabbing a backpack from under her bed, she filled it with as many non-perishable foods such as candy and potato chips as she could carry. She then headed out of the apartment building. Her goal now was the opposite of what it had been yesterday. Now she needed to get out of the city instead of into it.

She briefly considered heading across the river into Cambridge but quickly realized there was a good chance that the bridges were out. Instead, she headed west towards Brookline, which she would pass through on her way out. Her goal was to try and get out of Greater Boston by tomorrow morning, which she believed she could accomplish depending on how much of the city had been blocked off. It seemed that the rampage of the giant women had stopped, at least for now, and she was thankful that she had missed the show.

Even though she had been here in the city for hours, now, the destruction and desolation still felt surreal. Apart from the giant tits, and the sight of corpses burned into her brain, she had seen no-one.

That soon changed.

As she clambered over a large pile of rubble from a decimated house, she saw a figure partially underneath a military vehicle. At first, she thought he was dead, but as she got closer, she saw that the soldier’s chest was rising and falling.

“Hello?” she asked softly.

His eyes drifted open, and he looked in her direction as she knelt beside him. “You have to get out,” he told her, his voice strained.

She looked at the vehicle. Its full weight was not on his legs, thankfully. It was partially elevated by a car which had been crushed like nearly everything else around her.

Sophia rested her hand on his shoulder. “I need to get you out from under there.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he wheezed as his eyes drifted closed. “You can’t lift it.”

He was probably right, but she felt like she had to do something. She looked at the large vehicle and began to see if there was anything she could do. Maybe she couldn’t lift it, but perhaps she could tilt it? Even if it was just a little bit, it could be enough for him to get free.

A sudden tremor caused her to stand straight up and look around.

The soldier spoke again, this time, more forcefully. “You can’t fuck about. You have to go before they all wake up.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said as she began to push on the vehicle as hard as she could.

The soldier cried out in pain as the vehicle began to slide away before it rolled over, freeing him. For a moment Sophia stared in shock. Had she just done that? No, it must have been teetering, and she had just given it the shove it needed. That had to be it, as there was no way she was strong enough to flip it like that. No way.

Right?

She shook off the thought and turned her attention to the soldier as she knelt beside him. “Can you get up?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “You have to get out of here.”

There was another tremor, knocking Sophia over onto her butt. She quickly pushed herself back up before gripping the man by the arms. With a heave and a cry of pain from him, she managed to pull him into a seated position.

“I’m not going to let you die,” she told him firmly.

He shook his head. “You can’t lift me, and I can’t walk. I must be a-hundred-and-fifty pounds heavier than you are.”

She knew he was right, but she couldn’t just give up. If the roles were reversed, she would want to be saved, and she knew that low down he wanted to live. He was just trying to save her, but she intended on keeping him. Without any more thought, she squatted next to him and raised his arm, placing it over her shoulder.

“No,” he said, pulling his arm off of her.

She forcefully put it back before lifting him. Much to her surprise, he wasn’t nearly as heavy as she was expecting him to be.

He cried out in pain as he tried to stand. Sophia made an effort to take most of his weight, but he was much taller than she was making his posture stoop heavily in her direction.

Thankfully, he started to gain his footing somewhat. “You’re persistent,” he uttered, his breath short. “And a helluva lot stronger than I would have expected.”

“Can you walk?” she asked him.

“I’m in fucking agony,” he replied.

“Just lean on me,” she told him. “I’ll try to take the weight.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, there’s no way you can take my weight,” he uttered before shaking his head. “Sorry, I don’t usually curse this much.”

“You’re in pain; it’s okay.” She looked down the road ahead. There was still a long way to go until they were out of the city, and while she realized that the injured soldier would slow her down considerably, she was going to save him, regardless.

With another low tremor, Sophia knew they were going to have to get off of the street. It was far too open, yet there was nothing they could do about it. If they wanted to get out of the city, they had to go by road.

Or did they?

She thought for a moment. “The subway,” she said out loud. “It’s deep, and the tunnels should take us out of the city, or at least close enough to the edge. We could head southward towards Quincy.”

“Bad idea,” he said. “They’ll cave in under the earthquakes those giants are causing.”

She glanced at him. “How many of them are there?

“I don’t know. Maybe five or six. All women.”

“And how big?”

“When we were called in, they were twenty-five feet and already immune to the armaments the cops had available. When we arrived, some were getting on fifty. They stayed that size until last night. Or maybe it was the night before, I can’t remember. Then one must have hit a hundred.”

“A hundred? That tall?”

That was a frightening thought. However, she had already seen one in the city that had to be at least that tall. Or at least her tits.

Sophia sighed. “Regardless of how tall they are, the subway has to be around a hundred feet deep,” she told him. “That’s a lot of rock, and besides, it only has to hold long enough for us to get out.”

He shook his head. “A hundred feet at its deepest point. That’s not its average. Its average is probably a lot less than that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sophia said. “We can’t move up here on the surface, they’ll see us.”

“Then leave me,” he said. “You have a better chance of being able to hide without me slowing you down.”

“We’re taking the subway,” she told him firmly.

“It’s suicide.”

“So is staying up here,” she pointed out.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He then opened them and looked at her with a slight nod of his head.

“I suppose it’s worth a shot,” he accepted.

“That’s the spirit,” she said as she took a step forward.

He took a step of his own which visibly caused him pain. “This is going to be a fun time,” he said sarcastically.

“Just keep it slow and lean on me,” she told him.

“Easy to say when one of your legs isn’t fractured.”

As they took another step, he began to shake his head. There were tears in his eyes. She felt awful for him and wished there was something she could do.

“I can’t go on,” he told her through gritted teeth. “It’s too painful.”

There was to be something she could do. She looked around. If she could find a bicycle or something, maybe he could sit on it, and she could wheel him? It was a stupid thought, and she knew it was, but she had no idea what else to do.

Her thoughts were interrupted as a large shadow fell over them, followed by a tremor. She looked around to see what must be a fifty-foot tall naked woman standing there. Thankfully, she wasn’t looking in their direction, but that could change at any moment.

Without another thought, she scooped the soldier up in her arms bridal style, nearly unbalancing herself in the process. It also earned a whimpered cry of pain from him. Without wasting a breath, Sophia leaned back as she carried him up the steps into a nearby building as fast as she could, taking both of them out of the giant woman’s line of sight.

Only when they were inside, did the soldier dare speak. “How the fuck are you carrying me?”

“I’m stronger than I look,” she told him. “I work out.”

“Still, a girl of your size should not be able to carry a six-three tall man so easily.”

Once again, she knew he was right, but she didn’t want to talk about her freakish strength. Firstly, she didn’t know how he would react if she told him she had super strength and super speed, which she seemed to have, at least a little bit. She was definitely no Flash or Supergirl from the movies or comics. Hell, she probably wasn’t an Olympic Games Olympian either, but she was a lot faster than she used to be and a hell of a lot stronger.

Sophia kept her eyes on the shadow outside and didn’t even think about moving until it was gone, accompanied by deep foreboding trembles that shook the Earth.

After peeking outside to make sure the giantess truly was gone, Sophia decided to lay out the plan. “I’m going to try and get us both to the nearest subway station. From there we just have to follow the lines south to either Quincy or further if we can.”

She hoped that’s all she had to do. In truth, she had absolutely no clue. She had only used the subway once and hated it. This time there weren’t even any trains to catch, and they would be making their way through the tunnels on foot.

Cautiously, she stepped back outside with the soldier still in her arms. She could only imagine how she looked. She was a sub-four foot woman carrying an over six-foot-tall man. Plus she also had a backpack on which only added more weight. It was clear that she wasn’t entirely normal, not anymore.

As she moved through the rumbling streets, she thought back to the night she had died in the woods. Could she become a giantess? Was that one of her abilities? She honestly didn’t want to find out. This city already had enough giantesses walking around, causing death, destruction and chaos without her adding to it.

All she needed to do was to get herself and the injured man out of the city. She could worry about her freakish nature after that. That is if these giantesses could be stopped. What if they couldn’t? What if they kept on getting bigger until the world was destroyed beneath their weight? There would be a point if they kept on growing where they would equalize or even become heavier than the Earth. But they would surely outgrow the atmosphere and suffocate before that, right?

Sophia found herself losing her balance as the ground shook violently. The soldier fell from her arms with a cry of pain as she found herself laying on top of him.

“Sorry,” she apologized as she pushed herself off of him and into a kneeling position.

The ground shook again as a shadow fell over them. The solder covered his face with a whimper, causing Sophia to look up. High above them was one of the giant women and she was standing maybe two streets down. Unfortunately, she was tall enough that she loomed over the buildings, her gaze staring down at them. The sight was enough to make Sophia freeze up in terror. There was no way she could escape. If she went inside a building, the giantess would simply smash it. If she ran, the giantess would easily be able to keep up without even trying.

Sophia realized that she had to get to the subway, and she had to get there now. She scooped the soldier back up into her arms and ran. Unfortunately, her progress was slowed due to all the traffic and debris she had to get around.

Then, almost as though it had come from nowhere, the ground shook more violently than Sophia thought possible. Both of them found themselves airborne, the soldier once more flying from her arms. She landed hard with a cry of pain. But it was nothing compared to the agonized screech from the man.

This was it, and Sophia knew it. They were dead. There was no way either of them was going to be able to escape.

As the giantess reached down with her impossibly large hands, Sophia called out to him. “What’s your name?”

“Charlie!” he called back, his voice pained.

“Sophia,” she replied.

A firm grip surrounded her and Charlie as the giantess grabbed them both, one in each hand eliciting yet another cry of agony from Charlie. She then raised them to her face with a smile. That’s when Sophia noticed the dark veins and the slight glow in the giant woman’s eyes. Maybe it was the light, but she looked almost diseased.

The giantess licked her lips, and before either of them could fully comprehend what was happening, she had tossed them both into her mouth and swallowed them whole.

For a moment Sophia wondered where she was as she slid down the water slide from hell in complete and utter darkness before an intense feeling of vertigo as she found herself plummeting into the foulest smelling liquid she had ever smelled. That was when her skin started to burn.

Yet again she was facing death, and this time she truly believed it was the end.


	8. Death

ou “Charlie!” Sophia cried out in a panic. “Where are you!?”

At first, there was no response, which filled her with a feeling of dread.

“Charlie!” she cried out again. “Answer me, please!”

“Over here!” came the pained reply. “I’m over here.”

Sophia tried to swim in the direction of his voice but struggled. She had never been a good swimmer, which was made all the worse by the fact there was absolutely no visibility. The world around her was complete darkness, giving her an unpleasant feeling of vertigo.

“Charlie!” she called out again.

“Here!” he said a lot closer.

She squinted her eyes, believing she could almost make something out in front of her in the darkness. She swam over to it and wrapped her arms around what felt like a person.

It was Charlie, and like her, he was in a panic. “She ate us!” he cried out. “We’re dead, we’re fucking dead!”

“It’s okay,” she said in an attempt to calm not only him but also herself.

“You should have left me!” he shouted at her “You should have saved yourself. Instead, you tried to help me, and now you’re dead too!”

“We’ll get out of this,” she told him, despite knowing it was a lie.

He began to laugh, which unsettled her. She didn’t like it.

“Look at you,” he said. “The high school girl, trying to comfort the seasoned soldier.” He chuckled. “I think we got this backwards.”

“I’m in college,” she corrected.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re both food now. Digested to death in the belly of some over-sized bitch.”

Sophia looked around to see if she could see anything, but all she saw was darkness, though, in that darkness, she believed she could almost make out walls. If what she saw was real, then that meant there wasn’t a whole lot of room. At a rough guess, the stomach was maybe fifteen feet wide. She swam towards the side, pulling Charlie with her.

“There has to be a way out,” she muttered, resting her hand on the slimy wall. “Any thoughts?” she asked him.

“Only one.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m thinking… well, it’s more like I’m wondering if you’re human.”

“I’m human,” she said quickly. “Just motivated.”

“Motivation doesn’t give you super strength,” he pointed out.

“It can do. You’ve heard stories of people tearing off car doors off to save loved ones after accidents and stuff. People can do all sorts of things given the motivation.”

“But that ain’t carrying a two-hundred and sixty-pound man like he was nothing.”

“I couldn’t leave you. I had to try.”

“And it was pointless. On the upside, I can’t feel my legs anymore, so the pain’s gone.”

Sophia knew enough to know that that wasn’t a good sign. Neither was the sudden rising of the acid. She focused hard, trying to see. It was near pitch-black, which made it difficult. What she could see was waves rippling underneath them. There was a sudden deep rumble, followed by another, then another. The waves grew more intense, threatening to wash them both under.

Charlie explained what was happening. “Sounds like she’s on the move.”

“Move to where?”

“To eat more people, or destroy more of the city, I guess. Honestly, though, I don’t fucking know, and it doesn’t matter now.”

Sophia looked around again. There had to be some way out of this. There was no way that this could be the end. It couldn’t be. They were still alive, so there was still hope.

Charlie dashed some of that hope. “Does the air seem a little thin to you?”

She took in a deep breath. Apart from the foul, pungent smell, he was right. It did feel thin. She realized that they might actually asphyxiate well before they were digested.

As the acid began to slosh about more intensely, Sophia closed her eyes. The last thing she needed was some to get in her eyes and blind her. Not that it would make much difference in here, considering she could barely see anyway. Even so, she planned on getting out, somehow. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind.

“It’s really starting to burn, now,” Charlie commented.

For Sophia, the intensity of the burning hadn’t changed since they had landed. She wondered if that was another ability? To withstand being digested? Sophia felt for Charlie’s hand and held it. She felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to do more to help him.

“There must be something we can do,” she muttered. “There has to be.”

That was when the soft voice spoke to her. It was the one that had reincarnated her, the one that sounded kind, peaceful.

Though, the suddenness of the voice in her head made Sophia jump  in surprise.

“ **Perhaps there is more you can do,”** it said.

“Warn me next time,” Sophia said, holding her hand against her chest in fright.

Charlie was confused, thinking she was talking to him. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

The  voice continued. “ **It was unintended.** **Y** **ou were still in the transition phase from the abilities** **we** **gave you** **.”**

Sophia was confused. “ What are you talking about?”  she asked the entity.

“I’m not talking,” Charlie answered.

The voice  explained . “ **All you have to do is grow.”**

“And what about Charlie?” Sophia asked.

“What about me?” Charlie asked even more confused.

“I might hurt him,” Sophia said, trying to focus solely on the strange ephemeral voice.

“What’s going on?” Charlie said, utterly oblivious to the conversation.

“ **He is already dead.”**

Sophia refused that answer. “No, I can save him.”

“ **His wounds are too severe. He will die regardless. You must grow. You must wish it, and it will be so. This is all the aid we can give you, for now, Sophia Moreno. Use it well.”**

That wasn’t all that helpful, but she knew that despite not wanting to, she knew, at that point, she had little choice. The question was, what would happen to her clothes? She already knew what had happened before, and she certainly didn’t want to be stark naked in front of Charlie. It just felt inappropriate. But that wasn’t the big issue here. That was how he would react to her, suddenly gaining mass and volume? There was also whether she could even keep him alive and safe during all of this?

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll try.”

“Try what?” Charlie asked.

Sophia didn’t answer him. Instead, she decided that she might as well make things easier and just take off her clothes here and now. “Charlie,” she began. “Will you be able to stay afloat if I let you go?”

“I don’t know,” came his answer. “Better if I don’t.”

“Charlie,” she said, feeling uneasy. “I might be able to get us out of this. I just need you to stay alive a little longer, okay?”

“There’s no way out of this,” he said, sounding depressed.

“Yes, there is. You just have to trust me. I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”

“Sorry, but whatever you have in your head, just forget it. Just accept what’s happened.”

She disagreed. “I’m not going to accept it while there’s still a chance.”

She let go of him and quickly removed her top, casting it away into the darkness before grabbing hold of him again.

“We’re both going to get out of this, understand?” There was no response. “Charlie?”

“Have you taken your top off?” Charlie asked her.

She felt her cheeks go flush. “Um, well, yeah.”

“Is this really the time and place?”

“Yeah, well I’m taking my pants off next,” she mumbled.

“You can’t be serious? I can’t feel anything below my waist, so you’re wasting your time.”

Sophia felt embarrassed. “Just hold onto me.”

There was a delayed response before he awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. His grip felt weak, and while it concerned her, it also cemented her decision. She had to get them out of this, and she had to do it now.

She removed her pants, which was far more difficult when she was also trying to stay afloat with a large man holding onto her. She managed it before she slowly wrapped her arms around him as best she could.

“Don’t be afraid,” she told him.

“I’ve had a girlfriend before. In fact, I’ve had a few over the years. I’m not afraid. I just don’t think this is a good idea. Besides, we just met.”

“Charlie…” she began, knowing he’d gotten the wrong idea.

“This really isn’t the time for this,” he said. “Besides, I think I’m too weak to get my pants off.”

“Charlie, that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

“If you’re talking about me being afraid of death, then I’ve already accepted it,” he said.

“No, of me,” she said, feeling increasingly nervous.

“Why would I be?”

She answered him by starting to grow. It felt strange, but also enjoyable. No, she was wrong; it felt great.

“What’s going on? What are you doing?” he demanded, sounding nervous.

“Just relax. I’m getting us out of this.”

“Are you getting bigger?” he asked, his voice becoming frantic.

“I said I’m getting us out of this,” she repeated, her voice a lot louder than it had been moments before.

“You’re one of them,” he accused, as he limply tried to push her away. He couldn’t, she was far too big now, at near four times his height.

“No I’m not one of them,” she told him as she continued to grow until her body started to press against the walls of the stomach.

By that point, Charlie was entirely out of the acid as she cradled him against her chest. As her knees started to get pushed upwards due to the lack of room, she began to worry about accidentally crushing him. It was becoming harder to hold onto him without hurting him, especially considering how he was squirming in her grip.

She was also worried about her increased strength as she grew. She could easily crush him without meaning too. She needed to put him somewhere where she couldn’t do that. Only one place came to mind, but she didn’t want to traumatize him any further.

The walls of the stomach knocked her left arm as they began to convulse. She heard the muffled cries of agony from the giantess they were inside, and she knew that Charlie was going to be killed if he wasn’t somewhere she couldn’t accidentally crush him, or drop him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she gripped his tiny body. She raised him up and carefully placed him inside her mouth. She heard his screams of terror but knew there was nowhere else he could go, not where he wouldn’t die.

Safely inside her mouth, she continued to expand until the stomach gave way. A blinding light followed by an inhuman screech greeted Sophia as the giantess fell backwards. With nowhere else to go, Sophia tumbled forwards out of the gaping-bloody hole and down towards the ground. With a tremor, she landed heavily on the ground, which not only knocked the breath out of her but caused a nearby building to collapse.

“I’m out,” she said after a moment. “I’m actually out.”

Then she realized something, something horrifying. Her hand shot up to her mouth, and she carefully reached inside.

It was empty.

“Shit!”

Sophia began to look around her to see if he had fallen out somehow. He was nowhere to be seen, though she hadn’t really expected to. She already knew what had happened, and it made her feel sick.

“Please no,” she said as she fell onto her hands and knees and began to wretch. She had to get him out, and she had to get him out now. Only one idea came to mind, though it wasn’t much of one. She knew she had no other choice, so with a whimper, she held one hand in front of her mouth while she stuffed three of her fingers down her throat. Maybe she could vomit him out if he wasn’t already dead.

She kept on pushing her fingers down the back of her throat until it happened. She bent further as she vomited, trying her best to keep her hand in front of her mouth, so he didn’t fall too far.

Very little came out, but what did was a tiny man who looked up at her with absolute terror on his face. “Get away from me!” he screamed out.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she apologized as she began to shrink down, carefully placing him down onto the sidewalk before she got too small to hold him. “I didn’t mean to, please, I’m sorry!”

He tried to drag himself away, using only his arms but quickly grew tired. With no way he could escape, he just lay there staring at her as she quickly returned to normal height. As she slowly approached, he once more tried to drag himself away from her, which made her stop.

“I want to help you,” she tried to assure him.

“You swallowed me,” he said accusingly. “You fucking ate me!”

She wanted to tell him that it was an accident, but at this point, she knew he wouldn’t believe her. Instead, she just stood there trying to think of something to say that wasn’t another apology.

Finally, she did say something. “We have to get off the street.”

Charlie looked past her, and she turned around to see what it was. Behind her was the dead giantess and she was laying there, her stomach burst open like something out of a horror movie. It was enough to make her wretch again.

She was the one that had done that. She had killed someone, murdered someone. Her legs felt weak, and she found herself falling onto her hands and knees. She just wanted this to be over, she just wanted to go home, not to her apartment, but home to her parents. As strange as it was, she somehow felt they would know what to do, but she knew they wouldn’t. She wasn’t a little kid with a scraped knee. She was a monster who had not only killed but had actually swallowed a person, even if by accident.

After a period of silence, Charlie spoke. “You won’t get out of the city in time, not now.”

She turned around and looked at him. “What?”

“If the mission failed, then the nuclear option was on the table. I’d say we have maybe a few hours at best.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Nuclear option? You mean, nuke Boston?”

He nodded. “To stop you monsters, yes. I’m surprised they haven’t dropped them already. I hope they do. Kill all of you fuckers.”

Sophia gestured to the dead giantess. “I’m not one of them.”

“You coulda fooled me.”

“I’m sorry, okay? It was an accident. I didn’t mean to swallow you.”

“You put me in your mouth.”

“It seemed like the safest place to put you.”

“In your mouth?” he asked in disbelief. “How the fuck is that safe you crazy bitch!”

She began to approach him again, albeit slowly. “I thought I might drop you or accidentally crush you.”

“But you didn’t think you’d swallow me?” As he spoke, his eyes kept glancing at her ample bare chest.

She consciously folded her arms, covering herself up. “I need to find some clothes,” she muttered.

“You need more than that,” he said, his voice sounding strained.

Sophia knew he had every right to be both afraid and pissed at her, but she also knew there wasn’t time to make amends. With the slight tremors in the ground growing more intense, she knew that the other giantesses were most likely on their way to see what the commotion was about. That meant they had to get out of there.

With no other choice, she approached him. This time he didn’t try and drag himself away. Instead, he simply watched her. She squatted next to him and slid her arm behind his back, before lifting his legs, scooping him up into her arms once more.

There was a rumble which made her freeze. Sophia slowly turned around to see another smaller giantess was stood over the fallen one, staring at it. Carefully, she moved just out of sight before taking a long look around to gauge where in the city they were. She didn’t recognize it, and she wondered if it was because she had never been here or if it was because the destruction had made it unrecognizable.

Knowing they couldn’t stay there, slowly and carefully made her way down the street, trying her best to keep out of sight. As the ground began to shake with more giant footfalls, Sophia decided to pick up the pace. Her heart practically stopped as a giant shadow fell over them. She looked up to see a giantess standing there a few streets down. Thankfully she hadn’t seen them, her gaze elsewhere. Deciding not to risk being seen, Sophia slipped into a nearby building for cover.

She looked down at Charlie, who was looking up at her. Instead of fear or disgust as she had seen earlier, now he simply looked tired and worn down.

She asked him a question, one she needed an answer to. “Do you know what time they went to sleep last night?”

“After dark, I think,” he said.

She then realized something. “When was the last time you ate or drank something?”

“Yesterday. Or the day before.”

She looked around the hallway they were in. It appeared to be an apartment building, but just like most of the other structures, there were ugly cracks along the walls and ceiling.

“Then I think we need to find you something.” She carried him down the hall before kicking open an apartment door, shattering the frame. She headed inside and carefully placed him down on a sofa before making her way over to the kitchen area and opening the refrigerator. The internal light didn’t come on, and it was dead silent. That meant the power was out. That didn’t matter too much as it was still cold inside. With a half-empty bottle of sparkling water in her hand, she headed back to Charlie.

“This is all I could find,” she told him.

“You should go see if there are any clothes in the closet,” he mumbled.

“After you’ve had something to drink,” she urged as she unscrewed the cap before putting it down on the small coffee table.

She then lifted him into a seated position and took the bottle and gently placed it against his lips. Carefully, she then began to tip it until the water trickled into his mouth.

It wasn’t long until the bottle was empty. She simply discarded it before making her way to one of the bedrooms. It was clear that it belonged to a guy, so she headed to the other to find that it was the same. She decided to just rummage through the closet until she found something she could wear.

In the end, she settled for a black-shirt. It was far too loose for her, as were the jeans, but that didn’t matter. With no real other option, she literally grew into them before heading back out.

She glanced at Charlie, who sat staring at the wall and let out a sigh. Things were not going well. They were going badly, and thus far it felt like they were only still alive because of luck and nothing else.

She opened the refrigerator a second time and started looking for something to eat when the whole building shook, sending her crashing down onto the floor, the refrigerator landing on top of her.

In a panic, fearing that it would crush her, she gave it a shove to get it off. She had expected just to roll it off. Instead, she sent it through the wall.

She clambered to her feet and moved quickly over to Charlie to find that he had fallen on the floor. “Are you okay?” she asked him.

He looked at her. “Not really,” he mumbled.

She lifted him off the ground in her arms. “I think it’s time to move,” she said as she took him out of the apartment and back to the entrance. She peered out, seeing a grouping of giantesses stood several blocks away near where the dead one lay. They were all facing away from them, but Sophia didn’t want to take the chance of being seen, so she kept close to the buildings, putting them between their line of sight.

As she headed around a corner, Charlie spoke. “I’m dying,” he told her.

“I’ll get you help,” she promised.

“No,” he said, his voice weak. “Arms numb.”

“I’ll get you help,” she repeated.

“Struggling to breathe.”

She picked up the pace as she noticed a subway entrance ahead. “I’ve found it!” she yelled. “This is it. I can get you out of the city!”

“Won’t make it.”

“Yes you will,” she said as she hurried over and down the steps that led underground. “Just hold on.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can!”

“No.”

“Don’t give up. Fight!” she said as she pushed through a turnstile.

“Can’t.”

“No such word,” she said.

“You’re a sweet girl,” Charlie said in a whisper. “Sorry I got mad at you.”

Sophia slowed and looked down at him as he smiled at her. “You’re a fighter, and I understand why you were mad. I would be too.”

“It’s time to accept. Thank you for trying,” he said as he closed his eyes.

“Don’t you dare!”

Tears started flowing from her eyes as his breath grew shallow. She didn’t know what to do or how to save him. Slowly and carefully, she laid him down on a nearby bench and squatted beside him, gripping his hand in hers.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” she told him.

He didn’t respond. He took his final breath, and then his chest was still. Sophia raised his hand to her face and wept. After everything they had been through together, after how hard she had tried to save him, he had died anyway.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” she sobbed.

She felt guilty. She felt like she should have tried harder, that it was her own self-doubt and fear of what she was, what she had become that had led to his death. She could have tried growing from the start and simply walked out of the city with him in her hands. Or maybe she could have run faster. She already knew she could move quickly, albeit when she had done that she had ended up running straight into a tree.

There was no point in dwelling on it, and she knew that. He was dead, and there was nothing that she could do about it. Absolutely nothing.

Wiping away her tears, she rested his arms across his chest before sitting down by his head. She stroked his hair before staring down at her feet. She was a failure. The voice had been right, he had died anyway, but that only made her hate it. If the entity could save her from death, then why couldn’t it have saved Charlie? Why did it not tell her anything? Why was it so secretive? She needed guidance, but it gave her nothing.

A slight tremor caused lights overhead to flicker, which brought her attention to the fact that there was still power down here. With a second tremor, a loose ceiling tile came loose and fell, smashing against the floor with a loud, sharp slap.

Sophia knew that she should probably not hang about and get moving, but she honestly didn’t want to leave Charlie’s side. She had known him for a scarce few hours, yet they had been through so much. She felt guilty about it, and she didn’t know why. After-all she had done her best. Maybe it was because she had survived without even a scratch. Perhaps it was because she had not only been given a second chance at life but a third. He had only been given the one, and she honestly felt that he deserved a second chance more than she did.

The whole room seemed to jump as an earthquake struck suddenly. She held onto Charlie to stop him falling off the bench as the intense rhythmic rumbling continued to the beat of what she assumed were the footsteps of those moving overhead. The lights then went out, and she was cast in near-complete darkness, the only light coming from the stairs that led up out of the subway.

The rhythmic trembling grew weaker but did not stop. Sophia didn’t care, though. She just sat in the darkness, feeling unmotivated to go any further. What could she do against the giantesses? Grow and fight them? That would only cause more destruction, and she didn’t know if she could fight them all. Besides, she didn’t even know how to fight and if what Charlie had said was true, then the military had a plan to drop a nuke on Boston.

At this point, she was content with simply sitting here and awaiting that to happen. She had honestly given up and felt that her life was effectively over regardless.


	9. The Subway

What was she still doing here? Was she waiting for the end?  Was she w aiting for death? She didn’t know what she wanted, apart from to see Charlie’s eyes open. She was thankful he had died with them closed, she didn’t think she would have been able to bear the everlasting stare of death.

Sophia had no idea how long she had been sat there on the bench in the subway entrance when she noticed the flicker of flashlights from further inside the station. She could hear talking, not that she cared what they were saying. If they were smart, they would turn around and go back down to the platforms. All that waited for them outside was death.

She glanced down at Charlie. “Look, some more people I can get killed,” she muttered dejectedly.

The six men moved past her, not seeing her at first. They all had backpacks on, with two of them holding large gym bags in their arms. Only two of them had flashlights, and one of them flicked theirs her way, landing on her face. She shielded her eyes from the blinding light but did not look away.

“There’s two people here,” the guy said. He sounded young like her, maybe in his early twenties.

“One,” she said, her voice sounding strained. She tried not to cry again as she said, “he’s dead.”

The one that had spotted her moved over. “I’m sorry,” he offered, before looking back at his friends. “I’ll get her down to the others in the subway. Wait here for me to get back, will ya?”

“Sure,” an older man said. “Just hurry it up. We need to grab those supplies and get to Braintree. The guy with the shitty leg has slowed us down enough already.”

“I know. I’ll be a few minutes at best.”

“No,” Sophia said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving Charlie.”

“You can’t help him,” he said sympathetically.

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I care,” he said. “I’m Will, what’s your name?”

Sophia said nothing.

Will continued. “There are others down in the subway. We’re getting out of the city.”

“That’s nice. I hope you make it,” she muttered.

“Come on, you can’t stay here,” Will said. “Please, come on down to the platforms, it’s safer down there.”

“Just go away.”

Will bit his lower lip. “I know it’s tough. We’ve all lost people. But I think they’d want you to live. Come on, I’ll take you to the others. Please.”

“Okay,” Sophia relented as she reluctantly rose from the bench and followed him towards the escalator. It didn’t work, so they made their way down it like they were a standard set of stairs. Soon, they were at the bottom and making their way towards a large group. Some of them were stood around a flaming metal trash bin which illuminated the darkness of the station, while others sat with their backs against the support pillars.

Sophia turned to Will. “How long have you been down here?”

“Got here maybe twenty minutes ago from the last station up north,” he said.

“The other guy mentioned someone with a bad leg?”

“He’s just got a bad limp. His wife got killed right in front of him. The bitches were only fifteen feet tall at that point, but were freakishly strong.”

Sophia gulped. “They’re definitely bigger than that now.”

“How big?”

“I don’t know. I think some of them might be over a hundred feet. Maybe two-hundred.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Some of those huddled around the fire looked over as they approached. By a quick count, Sophia reckoned that there were maybe around thirty people, though most weren’t looking her way.

The man that brought her down here decided to introduce her while Sophia looked down towards the floor.

“Hey, can I have everyone’s attention!” Will shouted. “We got another survivor we found at the subway entrance.”

Sophia didn’t want an introduction. She just wanted to sit in a corner somewhere and be left alone.

“This is um...” Will paused. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t get the chance to answer as someone else called out her name. “Sophia!”

Her head snapped upwards, and her eyes locked with Brooke’s. She couldn’t believe it. Her friend was alive. In an instant, she was running forward, her arms out wide.

“Brooke!” she yelled out as she embraced her best friend into a tight hug.

“Jeez, Soph,” Brooke wheezed. “You’re squeezing too tight.”

Sophia let her go, a huge grin plastered on her face. Her friend shared her expression. “It’s so good to see you, Brooke. I thought...” she trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

“It’s good to see you too, Soph,” Brooke said, looking up at her.

It was at that point that the half-Colombian became acutely aware of her height. Brooke was five-seven which meant that she was right now maybe five-nine. That was nearly a foot taller than she should have been and should definitely be noticeable to her best friend. Despite this fact, Brooke said nothing. Instead, she turned on her flashlight and gestured for her to follow. The two moved away as Will headed back up out of the station to rejoin the others.

With both of them on another platform away from the others, Brooke spoke. “You’re certainly a lot taller,” she said in a whisper.

Sophia’s gaze met the floor. “I’m not one of them,” she said quietly, afraid of what her friend was going to say next.

Brooke sat down on a nearby bench and placed the flashlight down next to her. “I had a dream,” she began.

Sophia stared, almost certain that her friend was going to talk about having a giantess dream, like the one she had dreamed.

“In the dream, I was down here in the subway. The whole place kept trembling like there was an earthquake. Then this voice spoke to me. It told me I needed to wait for you, that you’d need my help.”

“A voice?”

Brooke then shrugged. “Yeah, in a dream, though, so I didn’t think anything of it when I woke up. Just went about my day until your mom called.”

Sophia swallowed hard.

“She mentioned that you had freaked and ran off. She was really worried about you, Soph. She said she rang you and when you finally picked up you said something about your shoes not fitting.”

Sophia was starting to feel sick. She didn’t want to lose her friend, but she was afraid that Brooke had figured it out, that her friend knew what she was.

Her friend was strangely calm when she asked the dreaded question. “Are you one of them?”

Sophia shook her head. “Not one of them, no.”

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened on Sunday?”

Sophia slowly made her way over to the bench and picked up the flashlight before she passed it to her friend, seating herself next to her. She felt like she needed to be sat down for this and wasn’t even sure she should be telling her this, even if she was her best friend.

“I died.”

“What?” Brooke asked with a confused expression. “What do you mean?”

Sophia kept her voice as low as she could. “I outgrew my car. I crushed it. There was this voice, and it told me to kill. It told me to come to Boston and destroy it.”

“Like those giantesses are right now,” Brooke said, her voice taking on a slight tremble.

“I refused the voice and it―whatever it was―killed me.”

“But you’re not dead,” Brooke pointed out rather obviously.

“Tell that to my giant deformed corpse that’s laying in the woods,” Sophia mused.

“Are you serious?”

“I saw myself with my own eyes. There was another voice, one that felt kind, almost serene. It told me that I would be reborn. I guess it meant it literally.”

Brooke stared, brow raised. “That’s crazy,” she uttered.

“So are giant women stomping a city flat,” Sophia pointed out.

“So you died?”

“And here I am.”

“And you’re normal, but a bit taller?” Brooke asked her. “You can’t grow or anything?”

Sophia shook her head, feeling tears start to well up in her eyes once more. “No, I’m a freak, Brooke.”

“You’re not a freak, Soph.”

“I’m crazy strong, I can run really fast, and I can grow into one of those monsters at will.”

She saw Brooke swallow. “So, you have powers? Like a superhero?”

“I’m no superhero, Brooke. Charlie died, I couldn’t save him.”

“Who’s Charlie?”

“A soldier. I found him. I tried to save him, but he died anyway. It’s my fault.”

They were interrupted by a rumble that echoed through the station. Some dust fell from the ceiling, causing them to look up.

“Been like this all day,” Brooke mused. “Some of the tunnels have collapsed, and one was jammed up with a derailed subway train. No sign of whoever was riding it, apart from a few bodies that is. That wasn’t a pleasant sight.”

Sophia said nothing.

“It’s not your fault,” Brooke said after a few moments. “I know you. You would have done everything you could to help Charlie. I know you would.”

Sophia wanted to argue, but honestly, she no longer had the energy. “I just want it to end,” she said instead.

“We all do. This is something none of us ever thought would or even could happen. But it has, and I guess we just have to get through it.”

Sophia looked down at her feet. “How can you be so calm about this?”

Brooke shrugged, though otherwise didn’t answer her question. Instead, she made some comments of her own. “I keep thinking, even if we make it out of Boston, what if there are giantesses elsewhere? What if this is happening all over the world?”

Sophia hadn’t thought of that. It made her sick to the stomach just considering it. “Then we’re all dead,” she muttered.

There was another rumble above, causing more dust to fall.

“Sounds like they’re moving again,” Brooke commented. “That’s not good for Will and the others.”

“They’re the ones that were sent to get supplies, right?”

“Yeah,” Brooke confirmed. “Enough to get us to Braintree. We’ll get more supplies there before getting the fuck out.”

Sophia looked over to the group who sat around the trash fire. Some sat with their arms wrapped around their legs staring at it, rocking back and forth, while others kept their gazes low. They looked like they had lost hope.

Brooke spoke. “They’ve all lost someone,” she told her. “For some of them, they saw it happen right in front of their eyes.”

“That’s awful,” Sophia said, looking away, not wanting to stare.

“Do you know something about all this?” Brooke asked her.

Sophia shook her head. “I know something about a darkness returning to this world. I know that this darkness has destroyed other worlds. I guess I’m supposed to defeat it somehow.”

“Other worlds?” Brooke asked. “Like other dimensions or something?”

“I guess she meant alien planets,” Sophia said.

“She?”

“The voice behind my resurrection. The good one, not the evil one.”

“Are you sure you didn’t dream it? Having voices in your head ain’t a good sign.”

“I thought I had dreamed it at first, but when you stand in front of your own corpse, it puts a few things into perspective.”

“I suppose it would. I have to admit, if it wasn’t for the dream I had, I wouldn’t be down here,” Brooke admitted. “So I guess we’re both crazy.”

“Brooke, I was brought back for a reason, and you clearly had your dream for a reason too. But I don’t know how to fight. I’m not that kind of person.”

“Maybe we can find someone who can teach you?”

“But what good would that do? If a giant fights another giant in a city, then everybody loses.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” Sophia said. “Me stomping about crushing buildings, cars and stuff by accident while trying to stop some giant women from killing people. I’m just adding to the destruction.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. That really is a problem.”

Sophia regarded her friend. “How can you be so calm,” she said in disbelief. “How can this not make you insane? I feel like I’m barely holding it together.”

“I think we’re all a little mad. It’s how we stay sane.”

“That’s dumb, Brooke.”

“So is saying that aliens exist.”

“When did I say that?”

“When you said that this darkness had destroyed other alien planets.”

“Come on, Brooke. There’s like a hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone. Some of those stars have to have planets with people on them. And besides, how the fuck is that crazier than giant women stomping a city?”

“Yeah, I see your point.”

“This is all fucked, Brooke. What if you’re right, what if this is happening elsewhere? We’re so fucked!”

“Calm down, Soph.”

“Don’t even, Brooke. This is fucked, and you know it is.”

“I know, but we can’t do anything about it, can we? All we can do is survive and get out of here.”

Something felt off to Sophia. Her friend was way too calm. “You’re not...” Sophia began. “Ya know... like me, are you?”

“No way,” Brooke said. “I wish because I’d be up there slapping some bitches.”

Sophia grew angry at the cavalier response. “This isn’t a fucking game, Brooke. I wish you’d take things seriously for a change because this is fucking serious.”

“What’s with the language, Soph? You’re usually so polite and well-mannered.”

“Fuck you.”

“I wish you would, Soph. I’ve loved you for years.”

Sophia just stood and stared, stunned by her friend’s comment. “What did you just say?”

“I said I’ve loved you for years, Soph. Look at you. You’ve got a big ass and big tits. The boys at school used to ogle you. Now it’s the guys at college and the mall. Hell, you’re like five-eight now, and your tits look even bigger. Can I touch ’em?”

“No,” Sophia said, folding her arms over her chest. “I didn’t know you were, you know. Lesbian.”

“I’m not.”

Sophia frowned at that response. “You just said you loved me.”

“That’s because I think I’m Sophia Moreno-sexual.”

“That’s not funny,” Sophia said. “What about Eddie?”

“Yeah, I liked him for a good fuck, but I never loved him. Not like I love you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. When you showed me your tits for the first time, it was like a sexual awakening for me.”

Sophia frowned. “When did I do that?”

“A few times, but that first time you were asking me if I thought they were too big.”

Sophia remembered. “You said they were perfect.”

“And I kinda meant it. That was years ago, and they got bigger. Now, they’re huge.”

“Brooke, I’m not gay.”

“I know. But maybe we can still make it work? I’m not asking you to fuck me, just let me honk your hooters once in a while.”

Sophia burst out laughing. She couldn’t believe that her best friend had just said that. It was one of the stupidest, absurd sentences she had heard her friend say ever. Despite the situation they were in, it made her feel better.

“What about Mark?” Sophia asked, referring to the guy from college she fancied.

“What about him?”

“You pushed me into getting his number.” She then remembered something. “You even sent him that inappropriate pic of me. Why do all that if you love me?”

“Because I want to see you happy, Soph. And maybe get in on a threesome. I think that would blow Mark’s mind.”

“You are weird,” Sophia told her friend. She then realized something horrible. “Oh my god, Mark might be dead.”

Brooke turned solemn. “Yeah. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but you might be right. A lot of people are dead.” Brooke wiped her eyes as she turned away. “But you know, can’t think about it or I might just fall into a hole I can’t get out of. Have to think positively. Gotta be dumb because otherwise I’ll start to cry and I’ll never be able to stop because holy fuck is all this is so unbelievably overwhelming.”

“I know,” Sophia agreed solemnly.

She now knew why Brooke had been playing all this off. It was because she was trying to hold it together. Make fun of the situation so that it didn’t destroy her. Knowing that she had to help her friend, Sophia did something she wouldn’t normally do. She looked around to make sure no one was looking at them before she slowly lifted her shirt.

“You can hoot my honkers if you want.”

“I think I said honk your hooters,” Brooke said as she turned back to face her friend. Her eyes went wide as she saw Sophia’s bare breasts.

“Go-on,” Sophia said. “This offer is on a timer, so you better get honking.”

Brooke started to laugh, as did Sophia. The terms’ honk, honking and hooters’ were so goofy that neither could help themselves.

Slowly Brooke reached out with her hands and gently started to caress her friend’s mammaries. “They’re so big and firm,” she commented.

“I know,” Sophia said. “I think they’ve got firmer. They barely sag at all now. I might not need to wear a bra ever again.”

“Jeez, Soph. If mine were a tenth this size, I’d be happy. Imagine how big they are when you go all giantess.”

“They scale with me, so they get pretty big.”

“I wish I could see it.”

“Maybe if we get out of this...” Sophia stopped herself. What was she even saying? She didn’t want to be a giantess or have the ability to become one. She just wanted to be normal.

Without warning, Brooke stuck her face between her tits and blew, making a loud farting noise. Embarrassingly, the others looked their way to see the two of them illuminated in the flashlight’s beam, with Brooke’s face still buried in Sophia’s chest.

Immediately, Sophia cupped her nipples with her palms while Brooke removed her face, laughing.

“That was louder than I thought it would be.” She then noticed the others were now watching them and turned beet red. “Shit.”

Sophia quickly pulled her top down and hid behind a nearby pillar. She had never felt more embarrassed in her entire life. She couldn’t believe she had done that where everyone could see her. What was wrong with her?

Brooke slowly walked over to her. “Sorry,” she apologized.

Sophia didn’t accept it because it wasn’t her fault. “I’m the one who made the offer, it’s my fault.”

Brooke leaned against the pillar. “This doesn’t change things between us, does it?”

“Of course not,” Sophia said. “Well, maybe a little. I had no idea you liked me in that way.”

“I have for years. You never noticed how eager I was to help you try on clothes, especially bras in the changing rooms at the mall?”

“I thought that’s what best friends did?”

“We _are_ best friends,” Brooke said. “I just always wanted it to be more. I shouldn’t have pushed it on you.”

“You didn’t push it on me. I sorta accepted when I lifted my top.”

“And your tits are really nice, Soph.”

“Thanks, but I’m not even sure they’re mine anymore. I mean, look at them. It looks like I’m wearing a bra, but I’m not. They’re just ridiculously firm for some reason.”

“Don’t complain. Some women would die to have tits like yours. Even before the upgrade.”

“Upgrade?”

“They used to sag a bit being as big as they are. Now, they’re like the world’s most perfect pair.”

“They look fake, now,” Sophia mused.

“No, they don’t,” Brooke reassured her.

“You think?”

“I know, now stop hiding behind that pillar.”

“I can’t, the others saw my tits.”

“And I’m sure it’s the best thing that’s happened to them since all this shit started. I bet they’ve never seen such a lovely pair. Now come on, stop hiding.”

Slowly, Sophia moved from behind the pillar and looked towards the group. They had all stopped looking except one, a guy that had to be around their age. He glanced at her now covered chest before he quickly looked away back at the fire.

A quake suddenly rumbled through the subway. A few tiles fell from the ceiling and smashed hard against the floor, making a few of them jump in fright. They were on borrowed time, they all knew it.

Brooke’s gaze turned towards the stairs. “I hope those six get back here soon. I don’t wanna be here if a giant foot comes through the roof.”

“You think that could happen?” Sophia asked her.

“I don’t really wanna find out.”

“Neither do I if I’m honest,” Sophia agreed. “How many supplies were they getting?”

“They wanted to fill all the bags they had on them, so quite a lot.”

“They might not be able to get back to the subway without being seen,” Sophia pointed out.

“Let’s hope they can. Some of us haven’t eaten since this all started two days ago.”

There was another rumble and the sound of something falling from somewhere inside one of the subway tunnels, and for a moment, Sophia thought she heard a growl.

Then someone shouted. “What the fuck is that!?”

Both friends looked over to see an older man pointing, while another pulled a pistol from inside his jacket. Without warning, he blasted off a few shots at whatever he had seen.

Brooke immediately was running towards him. “What the fuck are you doing!?” she demanded.

The guy with the gun glared at her. “Something was on the tracks.”

Someone else spoke up. “Probably a stray dog you dumbass.”

Sophia looked towards the stairs that led out of the subway. “We gotta be quiet. If they find out we’re down here, then we’re dead.”

“She’s right,” Brooke agreed as she started shining her flashlight down onto the rails. “You can’t start shooting at...” She paused as she laid eyes on what he had shot. “What the fuck _is_ that!?”

Sophia looked down at where the light was shining. Laying dead on the tracks was some kind of creature. It wasn’t too dissimilar to a dog, but it was a lot thinner had black eyes and worst of all, mandibles like an insect.

“What the hell is that?” someone else asked.

Brooke glanced back at the group. “They better get back with those supplies soon, because we’ve got to get out of this subway.”

Sophia continued to stare at the strange dead creature. She had assumed that the only thing they had to worry about was the giantesses, that they were the only threat that the so-called ‘Darkness’ had brought. That was clearly not the case. This dead creature showed that the nightmare might only just be beginning and that while they might be relatively safe from whatever was up there, it was a different story for whatever might be lurking down here.

None of them needed this, but they were. Depending on whether these creatures were hostile or not, their chances of getting out of this alive had become far more uncertain.


	10. Attack

The attack came from nowhere. One moment there was near silence broken only by casual chatter, then came the rapid pattering of feet and what sounded like the howls of the damned. 

Two creatures leaped out of the darkness with distorted growls, one going for Sophia’s neck, the other for Brooke’s. Sophia easily swatted her attacker away before she dove towards the one atop her friend, the animal’s mandibles mere inches from Brooke’s jugular as she struggled to hold it back. With a tackle, Sophia knocked it off before she punched the creature so hard, her fist went through its skull.

Without time to think, she quickly climbed off of it as another ran at Brooke. She intercepted it before it had the chance and wrestled with it on the concrete platform before she tore its mandibles off and smashed it headfirst into one of the support pillars, both cracking the support and the demon dog’s head.

There was no time to help Brooke to her feet as more jumped onto the platform, but instead of going for them, the creatures bolted towards the others. Trent, the one with the gun, blasted off a few shots before a group of four pounced him and started tearing off his limbs. He screamed out in agony before the screams of the others drowned them out as they watched him get torn to pieces before their eyes.

Sophia ran, unsure if she could stop them before more died. She managed to intercept one as it bolted for the older man with the limp. She grabbed it around its abdomen, knocking it off its course, before she pounded at its head with her fist, killing it.

There were more screams as a creature dragged a woman off into the darkness. Another man cried out as two grabbed his legs. He fell on to his back but managed to hold on to the end of a bench as they tried to drag him away as well. Sophia ran at them, kicking one off with a foot to the gut, before stamping on the others head. She spun around at the sound of a pained cry to see the man with the limp, the one she had just rescued, vanish into the darkness in the jaws of a demon dog.

It was like being in a horror movie, and she felt like a useless protagonist, unable to save those around her. As it turned out, she didn’t have to. With one dead and two dragged off, the creatures withdrew back into the tunnels from whence they came, probably to chew on their gotten gains.

She glanced at what remained of the group. Some were sobbing, and others were hugging themselves as they stared wide-eyed into the darkness. They had to move and quickly get to Braintree, and now they not only had to deal with the threat of death above, they now had to deal with the threat of death from below.

Sophia nearly jumped out of her skin as someone wrapped their arms around her waist.

“You okay?” she heard Brooke whisper into her ear.

“What are those things?” Sophia asked, genuinely scared of what else might be hiding out there in the darkness.

“I have no idea,” Brooke said, letting her go.

Sophia continued to stare into the darkness. “We need to get out of here.”

“The guys aren’t back with the supplies,” Brooke pointed out.

One of the other survivors said what Sophia was thinking. “They’re probably dead. We should get out of here before those things come back.”

Sophia agreed. “I think those things ran into the northbound tunnel, so if we head south, then we might be able to lose them long enough to exit in Braintree.”

“If there aren’t more south,” another survivor pointed out.

Brooke shook her head. “The guys went out to get supplies. They’re also looking out for any guns, so if they find any, we should be able to make it.”

“No, we won’t,” a middle-aged woman said. “We might as well take our chances with those giants upstairs. At least we can hide from them.”

Sophia disagreed with that. “Most of the city is rubble. I don’t think there are enough hiding spots left. Our best shot is to move now and move fast.”

A guy who looked like a biker with a shaved head and a beard disagreed. “I’d rather take my chances with the giant girls, than those hellhound bastards. Fuck, I’d rather die under the feet of a pretty chick than be torn apart by those fucked up mutant dogs.” He turned and headed for the escalator. “Fuck it. I’m not gonna wait. I might as well die on my own terms, get it the fuck over with.”

Sophia ran after him. “Stop,” she said. “You wanna go up there and give up?” she asked as she stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

“I ain’t givin’ up,” he said as he tried to shove her out of the way.

She didn’t budge. “You have a chance down here. Up there is death.”

“Down here is death, you stupid bitch. You saw what those fucked up bug-dog-things did. We don’t have no guns any more. They dragged that feller off! We don’t have no fucking chance! Not up there or down here!”

Sophia stared him down. “I won’t lose anyone else, especially not because they decided to throw their life away.”

“Just move outta the way and let me die the way I wanna die!”

“I’m not gonna let you throw your life away.” Sophia pointed back to the platform. “Go back and get this crazy suicide thought out of your head.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” he said as he tried to move around her.

She continued to block his path. “Don’t you have anyone that might want to see you again?” she asked him. “Someone that would want you to be safe?”

“Don’t try that shit on me!”

“So no one will care if you don’t make it back to them alive?”

“I...”

“So there is.”

His gaze fell to the floor. “My mom. She lives on her own down in New York. Rest of the family died a few years back.”

“Why were you up here if she’s down there on her own?”

“Work,” he told her. “Was supposed to be here only a few weeks. Contract work.”

“I will do everything I can to make sure we get out of this, so you get the chance to see your mom again.”

He looked her in the eyes. “I don’t know if you should be makin’ promises on things you ain’t got control over. But thanks.”

He turned around and sat on one of the platform benches, holding his head in his hands. As Sophia made her way back to Brooke, there was a heavy rumble from above. The subway wouldn’t hold up under the stresses forever; they all knew that. They needed to leave sooner rather than later.

That point was emphasized when the station sudden shook so intensely that it nearly knocked everyone off their feet. Not a minute later, the five guys who went to get supplies came rushing down the escalator, all of them holding rifles.

“We got some supplies,” one of them said before holding up the rifle in his hand. “And some guns from some dead soldiers.”

The guy called Will spoke. “We saw a dead one. Its stomach looked like it had been blown open by something. Maybe a bomb.”

Opting not to reveal the truth about the fallen giantess, Sophia stepped forward, addressing their other concern. “We have a problem,” she said gesturing at the trail of blood.

“What happened?” Will asked, staring at it. “Were you attacked?”

“There’s something down here,” Brooke said. “Some kind of creatures. Took two and killed Trent.”

Will looked up at the ceiling. “Fuck, well there’s another problem.”

The subway shook suddenly, with an intensity that none of them had experienced before, knocking everyone off their feet.

“I think they saw us enter the subway.”

The comment was accentuated by another earthquake that caused several of the support pillars to shatter like glass.

The biker jumped to his feet. “They know we’re fucking down here!” he yelled out. “We gotta move! Now!”

There was another extreme tremor. This time thick chunks of the ceiling came hurtling down, nearly crushing the group as it landed on the trash fire, putting the subway into near darkness. The only sources of light were the handful of flashlights they had.

“They’re gonna come through!” a voice yelled out.

It was then that Sophia knew what she had to do. She had to buy them time and give them a chance to get out of the area before the whole subway system collapsed around them.

“Go!” Sophia yelled out. “Head south, I’ll hold them off!”

“No!” Brooke yelled, shining her flashlight in her face. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said as she began to grow. “I’ll hold up the ceiling. The rest of you get out of here!”

The biker stared at her as her clothes literally exploded off of her body. “Fuck me. She’s one of ’em!”

“Get going!” Sophia shouted, her voice booming loudly in the confined space.

The group didn’t need telling again, not when faced with the rapidly expanding woman. They all turned and ran into the southbound tunnel, all except Brooke.

“Go, Brooke, I’ll be fine. You have to leave!”

The fourth earthquake was accompanied by a huge foot that came through the ceiling and impacted hard on the ground. Sophia watched as Brooke was sent flying out of sight, the whole roof collapsing around her.

“Brooke!” she yelled out, as two giant hands gripped her and lifted her out of the rubble.

“Look another sister,” a voice boomed overhead. “A bit short, but she’ll grow.”

The hands turned her around, and Sophia found herself looking up at someone that had to be at least five-hundred feet tall. They had to be because they were holding her like she was a small doll.

Concentrating, Sophia once more began to grow, knowing that it was time to put an end to this. She had wasted too much time and allowed them to live for far too long. She had been reborn for a reason, and that reason was to stop them from killing anyone else.

“You’re a fast grower,” the huge giantess said as she put her down. “We’re pretty much done with this city,” she continued as two more giantesses stepped up beside her, both around half the size of the biggest giantess. “As the new girl, you get to choose. Do we head north or south?”

Sophia looked up at them as she continued to expand. Just like the one that had swallowed her, they all had deep purple veins which covered not only their faces but their whole bodies. They also had the same strange creepy glowing eyes.

Sophia decided to stall them. “Let me think,” she said as she concentrated on getting as big as possible.

As she passed what had to be a hundred feet, she made the decision. “I think we should head East.”

The shortest one, who was maybe still fifty feet taller than her, laughed. “That’s the ocean, you idiot. No, we should smash New York. A lot of people there. Once we’re done with that, then we’ll be worshiped like the goddesses we are. No one will dare try and stop us. We’re already unstoppable.”

Sophia disagreed. “How about I stop you.”

Sophia threw out her fist, which connected with the smallest giantess’ jaw. The colossus stumbled backwards and fell, causing a minor tremor.

“What are you doing?” the largest asked.

Sophia didn’t answer as she tackled the second tallest, sending them both crashing to the ground. For a moment, Sophia panicked, wondering if she might have caused the subway to collapse crushing the survivors. A kick to the gut from the tallest giantess, though, made her realize that she had more immediate concerns to worry about.

“She’s on their side,” the tallest yelled.

Two more giantesses showed up. One gripped her by the hair and forcibly pulled her to her feet, while another began to pummel her.

“You think you can stop us?” she shouted as she slammed her fists into Sophia’s gut. “This world is ours, even if they don’t know it yet.”

It took a few punches to the gut for Sophia to realize that she had stopped growing. With focus, she began again, this time putting all of her effort into it. She shot up, sending the one holding her flailing backwards as she ascended upwards like a rocket, passing the tallest at over double her height.

The world around her looked near unrecognizable. The city, or rather what remained of it, looked like a tiny scale model. At a guess, she was a thousand feet or over, and she felt powerful like she had never felt before.

The other giantesses turned and ran, but Sophia was not going to allow them to escape. She picked up the tallest with both hands and held her high above her head. Then, like a doll, she threw her northwards towards the river.

Sophia didn’t get to see her splashdown as a blinding flash filled her vision. Sophia shielded her eyes, and for a moment, she wondered what was happening. But the realization soon hit her along with the shock-wave and the searing heat. It struck her hard, causing her to stumble and cry out in agony.

She had barely had time to recover when there was a second blinding light, only this time, it did not fade, and the world remained pure white.

The nukes! The military had actually nuked Boston.

Did that mean that this was it? After everything that had happened was she finally dead? Was the afterlife nothing but a world of infinite white?

The  ephemeral  voice  of light  answered her question. “ No, you are not dead.”

Sophia spun around, or she thought she had. With absolutely no points of reference in the pure white landscape she found herself in, she wasn’t sure.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

**“ You failed to stop them.”**

Sophia wanted to say that she had tried, but she knew she hadn’t, not really. She could have stopped them at any time, but she hadn’t. She had been too scared, too frightened. She had failed, and she knew it.

The voice continued. “ ** You may have failed, but the horrific weapons of mass destruction did what you could not. We had hoped it would not come to that.” **

“What about me?” Sophia asked.

**“ You are still needed. Our last gift to you is to save you from death one final time.”**

“So I’m going to be reincarnated again?”

**“ No, because you have not died.”**

“So, what happens now?”

**“ Your goal is to seek out the others.”**

“Others? You mean there are other giantesses to stop?”

**“ No, others tasked with stopping the ** ** D ** ** arkness that has come to your world. There are many, and not all of them may walk the path we set for them. Together you may thwart what threatens you.” **

“Who are they? Where are they?”

**“ That is for all of you to discover for yourselves. Seek out the other ** ** G ** ** uardians. Not all of them yet know their role.” **

“It would be easier if you just told me.”

**“ We cannot, because ** ** that is a challenge that you must all face alone ** **.” **

“Why?”

**“** ** **A test to make sure you are capable of completing the task ahead of you.”** **

“Why did you pick me?”

**“ **At first, it was because you rejected the gift of the Darkness. It sought you out because it seeks out those in turmoil, in distress.”****

“College was tough, but I wouldn’t say I was in turmoil.”

**“ **You were**** ** **in more distress than you perhaps realized. There is a crossroads for you. By accident, you may have become the strongest.”** **

“What do you mean?” Sophia asked, feeling confused. “That I’m the leader?”

**“ That, we cannot answer. Neither can we see what the future holds for you? Seek the others and prove that you are worthy of survival.”**

Sophia looked around her. “Where am I now? Is this in a dream, or?” As soon as she asked it, something stirred in her memory. Brooke had mentioned a dream as well. “Is Brooke one of the guardians?” she asked. “You spoke to her in a dream, warned her, right? Told her to get to the subway?”

 **“ That is for you to determine. The** **D** **arkness has already moved on, but its influence may remain on this world for a thousand years. It is for you and the others to stop it.”**

“What does that mean!?” Sophia demanded. “Did you give Brooke the dream or not?”

**“ In order to do what you must, you have to learn to find the answers on your own.”**

“It’s a simple question. I’m not looking to be spoon-fed on this. I just want to know if Brooke is like me? Why are you so damned cryptic all of the time?”

**“ She is like you, but also not like you. Take that as you must. Unfortunately, our time grows short, and we must depart. We have used up much of our strength, and a long journey lies ahead of us.”**

“Is it true that this evil darkness thing moves from world to world?”

**“ Yes and corrupts it, leading to the world’s potential demise.”**

Sophia didn’t like the sound of it. “Has every world fallen?”

**“ Most, but not all. You are a strong people. We believe that you have a better chance than most. Now we have to bid you farewell.”**

“Wait, will I ever hear from you again?”

**“ Possibly in a thousand years.”**

“I’ll be dead by then. Humans only live like eighty or ninety years, and that’s if we’re lucky.”

**“ Humans, yes. But you are no longer entirely human. Goodbye Sophia Moreno. May you lead the defense against the darkness and come out victorious.”**

“Can I ask one last question?”

There was silence, and for a moment she thought the entity had already left.

**“ **Go on,”**** ** it said,  ** ** finally. **

“You mentioned that I became the strongest by accident. What do you mean by that?”

**“ **You have been corrupted, Sophia Moreno. The abilities we gave you were speed and strength, e**** ** **nough to fell a giant** ** ** **. But due to the reincarnation process, your abilities had yet to solidify. During this** ** ** **time** ** ** **, you were corrupted.** ** ** **It is** ** ** **something you have become immune to** ** ** **now that your abilities have stabilized. Unfortunately, this also means you are not nearly as fast nor as strong as you were meant to be.** ** ** **Y** ** ** **ou gained the ability to grow** ** ** **instead.** ** ** **But n** ** ** **ot only that, but you also unlocked its full potential, something that not even the Entity of Darkness dare give its** ** ** **agents.”** **

“So being able to grow into a giantess wasn’t supposed to be one of my powers?”

**“ **No. That ability was once more given to you when you underwent**** ** **an unintended** ** ** **metamorphosis,** ** ** **and as we said, due to the fact your abilities were still in flux, our gift combined with the abilities given by the Entity of Darkness** ** ** **had unintended effects** ** ** **.”** **

Sophia tried to think of when that could have possibly happened.  Then it came to her. It must have occurred during her first encounter with a giantess.

“I remember,” Sophia said. “She put me inside her and tendrils pulled me in.” She shivered at the memory. “Later I hatched out of an egg.”

**“ **That is correct, Sophia Moreno. The Darkness has tainted you, but you have a pure heart. Follow it, and you will defeat it.”****

“Has this happened before? Has the Darkness corrupted Guardians in the past?”

**“** ** **Yes,** ** ** **though not often** ** ** **. Usually, they embrace their evil nature.** ** ** **O** ** ** **ther times they are not strong enough to fight it.** ** ** **The most fortunate are those that gain the abilities of the Darkness, but have no other ill omens.”** **

“What do you mean by that?” Sophia asked. “Are you trying to say that evil is going to try and corrupt me or something?”

**“** ** **Perhaps. It depends on how it manifests** ** ** **itself. You may have to fight every day. Or you may not feel the tint of the evil that is within you.”** **

“I don’t like the sound of that. Is there a way to know?”

**“ **T**** ** **hat is for you to discover for yourself.** ** ** **Before we go, though, heed this warning. Due to an accident of circumstance, you** ** ** **have become very powerful** ** ** **.** ** ** **Be wary for you can save** ** ** **your people** ** ** **, or destroy** ** ** **them** ** ** **.** ** ** **Farewell,** ** ** **Sophia Moreno** ** ** **.** ** ** **May we speak again between now and eternity.”** **

“Wait!” Sophia called out, but it was too late. The whiteness around her began to fade, only to be replaced by nothing.


	11. Inner Dissonance

Consciousness slowly returned to Sophia,  though an intense splitting headache accompanied it . It  was so painful that it  almost made her want to go back into the featureless white void.

Slowly, Sophia opened her eyes to see something she had never expected. Stood above, peering down was a deer. The creature raised its head raised as she screamed out in surprise, but it didn’t flee or run. It just stood there staring.

“Deja vu,” Sophia muttered as she slowly sat up and looked around, brushing the twigs out of her hair with a swipe of her hand. She was back in the woods, and while her first thought was to dismiss everything that had happened as a dream, she knew it wasn’t. It had been frighteningly real, and now she would undoubtedly have to deal with the fallout.

Looking down at her body, she saw that she was wearing some kind of sleeveless gray leotard. Touching it, she found it soft to the touch, but also tough. That’s when she realized it wasn’t a leotard at all, but that it was part of her body.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked as she pushed herself to her feet in alarm

Whatever it was, it covered the upper part of her body just like a leotard would, exposing her arms and her legs. But it was unlike anything she had ever seen. The only way she could describe it was that it was some kind of extra thick skin, but with a strange rough, yet also soft wetsuit-like texture. The question was, how did she get rid of it?

Almost as though it had heard her, the strange material merged with her skin, leaving her naked once again. “I’m starting to feel like one of those naturists,” she mused as she began to make her way through the trees.

She then stopped and looked around at the deer, which was following her. “What is the deal with you?” she asked it. “Are you important somehow, or are you just curious? Are you even the same deer?”

Sophia rubbed her eyes. “I’m talking to a fucking deer.” She looked down at her naked body. “I might as well see if I can grow that weird skin back.”

With a lot of focus, her skin turned gray and began to grow thicker, covering her arms and legs like a full bodysuit.

“At least I don’t look naked,” she said as she touched it. “Weird. I wish the Entity of Light or whatever it’s called had told me about this. It would be easier to save the world if I knew what the fuck I could do and what I was up against.” She tried to pinch the weird flesh, but couldn’t. “It’s like some kind of exoskeleton.”

She began to walk forward once more. “I don’t think I’ve ever cursed as much as I have over the last few days, but fuck it, this is so beyond everything that’s remotely rational.” She began to chuckle to herself. “Now I’m talking to myself. If Brooke saw me, then...” She trailed off as her mind replayed the events before the nukes had gone off.

Brooke hadn’t gone with the others. She had stayed back only to have the roof collapse. Sophia had no idea if she managed to get out, but even if she hadn’t been crushed, had she survived the bombs? Was it even possible to survive the bombs?

Sophia’s legs felt weak, and she stumbled into a tree, which she used to hold herself up. Was Brooke dead? The voice, whatever it was hadn’t answered her question when she had asked if Brooke was a Guardian like her, whatever a ‘Guardian’ even was. Had it known Brooke was dead? Was Brooke even dead? Maybe she was alive?

Falling to her knees, Sophia covered her face with her hands. She had seen the rubble fall atop where Brooke had been standing. There was no way she could have gotten out of the way in time.

“Fuck!” she shouted out. “Fuck the voices, fuck all of this shit!” She forced herself back to her feet. “I have to get home,” she said. “I have to make sure my family’s safe.”

Slowly but surely she started to push forward, even though her legs still felt weak. The last few days had been the worst of her life, the worst in a lot of people’s lives for that matter. The catastrophe that had befallen Boston was unlike anything the world had ever seen, and she hoped she would ever see again.

To resort to nuclear weapons meant that there was no other way of stopping the giantesses. That didn’t bode well if they appeared in other cities. They couldn’t nuke everything. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anything left. But right now that was a secondary concern. Her main one was getting home to Danbury. Depending on where the Entity of Light had dropped her off, it would either be a long trip or a very long trip. She had to find a road and hopefully a ride and even better, a phone to call home.

While hitchhiking wasn’t something she would have ever done even a week ago, her super strength should afford her protection against anyone looking to try and take advantage. Well, there was that and her insane ability to grow to a thousand feet or more.

Even now, she couldn’t believe how big she had gotten. She didn’t even know if that had been the maximum size she could achieve and she was too scared to find out, even out of curiosity. Being able to grow magnitudes in scale was unsettling. What was even more so was the feeling of power it gave her. She felt invincible like she could crush the whole world. She wondered if that’s what the other giantesses had felt, but lacked her sense of morality?

All these questions that she wished she could ask the entity, but from what it had told her she doubted she would talk to it again. It had gone in pursuit of the so-called Entity of Darkness across the universe, trying to save civilizations from the terror it brought them.

In her opinion, the Entity of Light was doing a piss poor job at it. How was she supposed to fight when she had no clue what she was fighting against? How could she fight when she had let her best friend die? She honestly believed that the entity had set it all up. To get them together and then let her friend die as some sort of sick lesson.

Sophia knew that she might be jumping to conclusions, that Brooke might be alive, but she was distraught. This was all too much for her to handle on her own. What made it worse was that the only person she felt she could talk to had been torn away from her.

Out of sheer anger and frustration, she punched a nearby tree as hard as she could. The trunk split, and with the sounds of cracking and splintering wood, the upper half fell to the ground.

She looked at her fist to find the strange material that covered her body now covered her hand like a glove. There was no blood, and her hand didn’t even hurt. It was definitely some kind of flesh- armor, like an exoskeleton. What it actually was, she had no clue, and there was no way to find out, either, which only added to the frustration she felt.

With a long deep breath, Sophia tried to calm herself. Killing innocent trees was not the answer. Unfortunately, there were no answers. Again, she had to get to Danbury. She had to let her family know she was okay, and she had to protect them from whatever was to come. She dare not even imagine what would happen if they were hurt or even killed. Would she lose it? She already felt like her grip on sanity was tenuous at best and slipping into oblivion at the worst.

With no other choice, Sophia pushed on. She had to get home to her family. She had to make sure they were safe.


	12. Going Home

Sophia had been walking for a good hour, albeit she had been moving slowly,  following the long line of vacant, gridlocked cars . She still had no clue as to whether she was heading in the right direction. She thought she was due to the position of the sun.

Home was still her ultimate destination. However, the further she went, the more reticent she became. She had left under suspicious circumstances and had even told her mom that her bra and shoes no longer fit her. It wouldn’t take a genius to connect the pieces and believe she was one of the monsters who had flattened Boston.

She slowed to a stop as the gridlock of cars came to an end. It was strange to see an empty road ahead but also afforded her an opportunity. She moved over to car at the front and checked the ignition. It was empty. She checked the one next to it and then the one parked on the grass. While it was a long shot, she knew that, but if just one of these cars had keys in the ignition, then she could get out of here.

Slowly, she worked her way back checking car after car and finding that in each one, the ignition was empty and in most cases, the doors locked. After looking inside what had to be the thirtieth car, Sophia was starting to realize how lucky she had been the other day when she had found the keys in the Land Rover. She wondered if that had been the work of the so-called “Entity of Light,” as she had started calling it, or just good luck? It was honestly hard to tell how much influence it had on the world. It made her question a lot of things, even her sanity.

“One more car,” she muttered to herself as she looked through the window at the empty ignition.

“Just one more,” she said as she looked into the next car. Nothing

“Final one.” Still, no keys.

“The last car,” she muttered as she peered into the window. “Yes!” she exclaimed, seeing a key in the ignition. To her joy, the door opened, and she was able to climb inside. With a twist, the car started.

“Yes!” she shouted again, but the joy was short-lived as she looked ahead at the jam of vehicles in front of her completely blocking the road.

“Dammit,” she uttered as she turned the car off and climbed back out.

The question had changed from whether she could find a car that had keys, to how did she get around the mass of other cars, preferably without getting stuck in the mud.

After a few moments, she came up with an idea, though she honestly wasn’t too fond of it.

With clenched fists, Sophia began to grow. First to ten feet, then to twenty before finally reaching thirty-feet. She then started the slow process of clearing the road by literally sweeping the cars to the side with her foot as though they were toys. They didn’t stand up to her immense strength and crumpled like paper.

It was hard not to feel powerful. In some ways, this was a dream come true. She had always felt out of place being so short in stature. Now, she was taller than the trees and capable of so much more. But she also knew that with all this power came a lot of responsibility. She knew it was a cliché line, but she honestly believed it was something to abide by, especially when she could grow to a thousand feet or taller.

With the road cleared she shrank and made her way back to the car and climbed inside and drove down the now cleared road.

It was a little surreal passing all the smashed and destroyed cars knowing that she had been the one that had done it. They had seemed like toy cars to her, but seeing the destruction at normal size was sobering. She was capable of so much, and yet she had never felt more afraid, especially of herself.

The drive home took a good few hours. She didn’t drive particularly fast, mainly due to anxiety. The roads were empty, emptier than she had ever seen them. Apart from a few convoys of military vehicles, she saw almost no one. At least until she was a good thirty miles from Danbury, that was where the traffic picked up to more normal, familiar levels.

It wasn’t until Sophia had entered her hometown that she began to feel relaxed. Everything here seemed ordinary, the traffic, the people. It was as though nothing was amiss, that the horror of Boston hadn’t happened. If she hadn’t been driving the stolen car or wearing in nothing but the strange thick gray armored exoskeleton-like skin, she would have believed that it had all been some horrible nightmare.

That relaxed feeling evaporated when she turned onto the street her parents lived on. There, parked in front of her house, was a Humvee and two police cars. Quickly, she pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off, her gaze focused on them.

It was evident that they weren’t there for dinner. They were parked outside her parent’s house because they knew what she was, somehow. The question was, how did they know? Had they found her giant corpse in the woods? Or maybe she had grown so big that everyone within a hundred miles had seen her? That was a chilling thought.

Ten minutes had passed when an armed man stepped out of her house. He climbed into the Humvee. Seconds later, it and the two police cars moved off, turning down another street, which she knew for a fact was a dead end. She waited to see if they were simply turning around, but when they didn’t she became suspicious. It was as though they were setting a trap, which they most likely were. It was pretty evident that she was the mouse, and her parents were the cheese.

“Shit,” she cursed. Sophia knew there were two options. One was to leave town, and the other was to head home like nothing was amiss. She decided that she had to do a little reconnaissance before she did anything else.

After checking the rearview mirror, she started the car and drove down the road past her parent’s house. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary, but she knew that didn’t mean much. There could be an entire platoon inside, and she would be none the wiser until it was too late.

Passing the road that the Humvee and the two police cars had driven down, she saw them parked at the end of the street, far enough not to be noticed by anyone passing. Unfortunately for them, she was looking for them, and they stood out as plain as day.

Circling the block, Sophia parked her car back where she had started, once more switching off the ignition. There she sat for several minutes before she finally got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. With a deep breath, she made her way towards her family home.

She was being stupid, and she knew that. If she were smart, she would drive away now, but she had to know her family were safe. They were more important to her than her own safety, and if anything happened to them, it would destroy her.

Her heart was thumping in her chest as she raised her hand and pressed down the doorbell then knocked. It took a moment for the door to open. Stood on the other side was Sarah, her mother.

“Mom,” Sophia greeted, taking a step forward.

Her mother’s reaction was heartbreaking. Her eyes went wide, and she took several steps back. It was at that moment that Sophia realized her life truly was over. She couldn’t even go home, her family knew, and they were afraid of her.

“Mom,” Sophia said again, reaching forward.

Two men dressed in military uniforms stepped out of the living room. One held an assault rifle, while the other had a large scoped rifle that looked more like it was for shooting tanks than people.

“Don’t try to run,” the one with the scoped rifle said. “You so much as look like you’re growing, I’ll put a fifty cal through your head.”

Her mother pleaded with her. “Do as he says, please. You’re not well.”

Her father Edwin stepped up beside his wife, putting his arms around her. “We love you, Sophia, but after what you did...” He paused. “You need help.”

Sophia took a step back. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said in disbelief. After all, she had been through, after everything she had survived her family, her mother, her father, the US military. They all thought she was one of them. They thought she was a monster.

The sounds of screeching tires and roaring engines caught her attention. Sophia looked around to see the Humvee was back with four soldiers clambering out all clutching military rifles.

“I didn’t do anything,” Sophia repeated, looking at her parents.

“We saw the footage,” her mother said.

Sophia took another step back. “But I tried to help.”

The man with the fifty caliber rifle raised his weapon. “Stop moving. Remain where you are.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sophia said with less enthusiasm as she turned her gaze downwards.

She couldn’t believe this was the turn her life had taken. She had hoped that she could somehow salvage the situation, but it was clear now that she couldn’t. Her parents were afraid of her, terrified and that destroyed her.

Regardless, she couldn’t let it end like this.

“I’m sorry for ruining your birthday,” she said, looking up at her father. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t let them take me.”

Sophia turned and ran, consciously covering the rest of her body in the thick gray exoskeleton as she bolted towards the stolen car. The sounds of gunshots rang out, accompanied by a scream from her mother.

“Don’t hurt her!” she heard her father yell out. “She’s scared!”

Sophia felt a hefty bullet strike her in the back of her now armored head, but it didn’t slow her down as it shattered against her reinforced flesh.

“Stop that freak!” she heard a man yell, but it was already too late. She jumped into the car, twisted the ignition then slammed her foot down on the gas pedal.

Swinging the car around, she sped off in the opposite direction as bullets ricocheted and punched through the sides and back of the vehicle. She slid around the corner and sped down the road, escaping their sights.

Sophia had no idea what her next move was going to be, but with the crescendo of sirens in the air, she knew she had to get out of town and fast. Her best bet was New York, as it was relatively close and there were a lot of places to hide. From there, she didn’t know.

As she swerved around another corner, she skidded down the side into an oncoming car, causing sparks to fly and for the other driver to slam his fist down on the horn. Sophia didn’t stop or even slow down. She had to leave, and checking the dial, she saw that she was almost out of gas which wasn’t good.

As she approached another junction, a large military truck sped out of a side road, blocking the way. Slamming the breaks on, Sophia swerved, slamming the side of the car into the truck, her head bouncing off the glass of the driver’s side window, shattering it.

Dazed, she put her foot down on the gas in an attempt to escape, only to crash into the wall of a nearby house. The airbag deployed, hitting her in the face, further adding to her addled confusion. Before she knew what was happening, they had dragged her out of the car, and her wrists and ankles were bound.

Sophia stared up with bleary eyes as a figure stepped over her. “Goodnight bitch,” a voice said as he brought the butt of his gun down on her head.

The world seemed to spin, and she was powerless to stop it.

“Get the freak in the truck,” another voice said.

This was it. She had tried to escape only to end up captured anyway. They saw her as a monster, and perhaps she was. The look of fear on her parents faces, her mother’s scream when she ran, and they shot at her. She wished things had gone differently, but they hadn’t.

If only.


	13. Captured

Silence, quiet, calm.

If it weren’t for the slight headache that was niggling in her head, the chill that permeated her flesh and the fact that she couldn’t move her arms and legs, it would have been serenity itself.

Sophia Moreno opened her eyes to find herself bolted down to a bed by thick reinforced metal restraints. A fluorescent tube light illuminated the room, and the far wall was obviously a one-way window. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, but she could guess where she was, even if she didn’t want to believe it.

She tried to move but she couldn’t. She was lying flat on her back with her arms above her head and her legs slightly splayed apart. She was also completely naked and at the mercy of whoever had captured her. She just hoped their intentions were noble. Though if memory served her, it was the army that had her. Or rather the army had captured her. It was likely that she was in some super-secret government facility and while she usually would have found that thought absurd, everything over the last few days had been just that.

“Hello?” Sophia called out. “Can anyone hear me?”

She felt groggy, exposed and honestly scared. Being completely in the buff made her uncomfortable as well as cold. Once more she struggled in her restraints, hoping to loosen them somehow but they didn’t so much as move. With that avenue closed off, she tried another trick to get loose. Closing her eyes, she began to grow but quickly stopped when the pain in her wrists and ankles became excruciating.

She tried to cover her body in the thick exoskeleton to see if that would help break her binds. It began to form and spread across her body before it vanished, leaving her both naked and feeling fatigued.

“Shhhhiiiiitttt!” she uttered as she shrunk back down. It appeared that she wouldn’t be growing out of her restraints, not without serious injury. She was effectively trapped.

Taking another look around the room, she saw two surveillance cameras that were pointed right at her. She glanced back down at her naked body and splayed legs then back at the cameras which had a full view of everything. She was feeling extremely uncomfortable and wished they had at least given her a blanket to cover herself. This treatment seemed rather cruel and unusual.

“Hello?” she called out again. “I’m ready to talk if you want to? I’m not a bad guy, please. I want to know what’s going on just as much as you do.”

Sophia waited for what had to be another five minutes. With still no sign of anyone, she tried once more to loosen her restraints, but they didn’t budge. They were locked tight.

It didn’t bode well for her escape if she couldn’t even make them creak. They were solid, and she wasn’t going anywhere without her captors’ say so.

A noise drew her attention, and she looked over at the door as it opened with a clang. A woman dressed in a white jacket stepped into the room with a folded blanket. Their eyes met, and the woman paused.

Sophia then frowned. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where am I?”

The woman approached her slowly. “You are safe, Sophia,” she said as she unfolded the blanket and threw it over her, covering her naked body. “That should keep your modesty.”

“Thanks,” Sophia said as the woman made her way back to the door. She stepped out for a moment before returning with a large needle.

Sophia stiffened, her eyes going wide as she focused on it. She had hated needles for as long as she could remember, especially when those needles were intended for her.

“I’m not going to harm you,” the woman said as she took the translucent cap off of the needle. “I’m simply going to take a blood sample. Then I’ll let you rest.”

“I hate needles,” Sophia said through gritted teeth.

“It will be over before you know it,” the woman said as she carefully leaned over her inserted the needle into Sophia’s inner elbow.

While she could feel the prick, she couldn’t see it, thankfully. Her wrists were restrained above her head, which made it difficult to see anything the doctor was doing. She just hoped she wasn’t taking too much blood, though considering the size of the needle she doubted she could if she tried.

“All done,” the woman said as she took a step back and placed the cap back on the now blood-filled syringe. “We are going to run some tests. Try and find out what’s wrong with you.”

“Okay,” Sophia said simply.

The woman left without another word, closing the door behind her, leaving Sophia alone once more. Honestly, this wasn’t as bad as she had feared, though she knew it could still get a lot worse. It was only a matter of time when they moved from testing her blood to doing physical tests on her. She half expected them to come in with a bone-saw and start chopping her up for experimentation.

It was then she realized that all those years watching lousy horror movies probably hadn’t been the best idea. There had been quite a few where a young woman like her had been tied up or restrained while the killer brutally murdered them, which was not unlike her current situation. The difference being that in those movies the young women couldn’t grow to a thousand feet or more.

Sophia closed her eyes and began to concentrate to see if she could hear anything. Apart from the hum of the air coming through the vents, she heard nothing. She feared what they were planning on doing to her, but also had to remind herself that she was still a citizen of the United States. She had rights, and right now, they were holding her without charge or trial.

But there was a fear that they didn’t see it that way. It was possible they only saw a monstrosity waiting for the chance to kill them. She wasn’t like that. She never wanted to hurt anyone. That didn’t mean she wasn’t ready to fight, though. She had already killed a giantess by literally bursting her open like a swollen grape. But she hadn’t been able to save Charlie or Brooke. She just hoped her best friend was still alive and had somehow managed to make it out.

With a sigh, she tried to move her arms and legs, but still couldn’t, not that she had expected to be able to in her restraints. Her only hope was to try and appeal to their humanity.

“Hello? Doctor, are you there?” she called out. “I tried to stop them,” she shouted. “Those giantesses that crushed Boston. I tried to stop them, but I was scared. You can understand that, right? I was scared. Hello!?”

There was no response, but someone was watching, there had to be. There was no way they would leave her alone without supervision. That would be idiotic, especially considering her abilities. That meant that they either couldn’t hear her or were ignoring her. She went with the latter.

“I’m not a bad guy!” she shouted. “I’m good. I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

Still, there was no response. They had to see that she was speaking, even if they couldn’t hear what she said. She wished she had asked the doctor some questions before she had left, but she knew that the opportunity had been rather fleeting. The woman hadn’t exactly wasted any time.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Sophia said. “If I know it, then I’ll tell you. I’m willing to work with you to figure this thing out. Those monsters out there, there’s more than just the giantesses, there’s messed up giant insect dog things too. There might be a lot more as well. You might not be ready for what’s to come. Maybe I can help? Please?”

With still no sign that anyone was listening, she fell silent and tried once more to grow and break herself out of her bonds. As with last time, the pressure on her wrists and ankles became so painful that she had to stop and revert to her normal size. Despite this continued setback, Sophia wasn’t going to give up. She believed if she kept at it, then the restraints would eventually break. The unfortunate keyword being ‘eventually’.

Sophia felt her eyes grow wet. She knew that there were people out there that would literally kill to have the ability to grow into a giantess, but she honestly didn’t want it. There had been a brief moment where she had accepted it, but after seeing the reaction from her parents, she no longer did. She wanted to be normal. That was all she ever wanted, but in some ways, she never was normal. In high school, when her breasts had gone from average to massive, she’d gained the attention of the boys and had never lost it. She had never been particularly popular before then. People saw her as the short, shy girl with the try-hard funny friend who no one found funny.

That had changed when her bust had grown to 34F. The boys had definitely started to notice her then, and it had made her uncomfortable and self-conscious. In an attempt to compensate, she had begun wearing more loose shirts and even used bindings. At least until her friend Brooke had convinced her that her boobs were beautiful just the way they were. At the time she thought she was just being a friend. Now she knew it was because she had feelings for her and now thinking about it more, she knew there might be feelings in return.

That was if Brooke was still alive.

Deep down, she knew she was. Sophia couldn’t explain it, but she knew Brooke was still alive out there somewhere and she would find her. She just had to break free, somehow. The keyword being ‘somehow’.


	14. Origin Story

Time felt as though it was suspended. As though a never-ending moment in time had ensnared her. With no clocks or windows, Sophia couldn’t tell what time it was or how much had passed since the Doctor had entered the room, given her a blanket, taken some blood and promptly left again. The fact that she kept dozing off only added to the feeling and it gave her some time to think and notice a few things that seemed odd.

For instance, the top of her head felt cold. She couldn’t quite see, but she wondered if an air-vent or something was blowing on her. She could hear one, but it sounded further away. It was that, or the unthinkable had happened, and they had shaved her head. Being bound as she was, she couldn’t check. She had tried a few times to rub her head against her bicep to see if she could feel her hair, but due to the way they had bound her arms splayed out above her head, she couldn’t. She had even tried shaking her head, but all she had accomplished doing that was to give herself a painful crick in the neck.

At one point she even started to believe that pausing time might be another latent ability of hers and that she had accidentally frozen time in place. Considering how forthright the entity had been, or rather had not been, concerning her abilities, she didn’t know what she could or could not do.

That illusion was broken when the door opened once more, and the doctor woman in the white jacket stepped inside. She is holding a folding chair, which she promptly unfolded, placing it down next to her bed before she sat down.

“Um… Hello?” Sophia offered nervously.

“Good afternoon,” the woman greeted. “How has your day been?”

“Boring, unsettling and unpleasant,” Sophia answered truthfully. “And I also hurt my neck.”

“That’s too bad,” the woman said with a noticeable hint of sarcasm.

Sophia glanced at the door, which was still open. Outside was a corridor, but there was no sign of anyone. “Are you the only person here?” she asked.

The woman looked over at the door before she stood up to close it.

“You don’t get to ask questions, I’m afraid,” the woman said as she sat back down. “You are here to answer them.” The woman then offered a fake smile. “I am Doctor Alyssia Simone, and I’ll be the only soul you’ll see. At least for a little while until the powers that be decided otherwise.”

“Okay,” Sophia accepted.

“Everything you say and do is being recorded. We know you have been attempting to grow to break out of your restraints.”

Sophia sunk slightly into the bed. “Well, I had to try,” she squeaked.

“Please don’t try any more. If you do, they might just decide to shoot you in the head and get it over with.”

Sophia swallowed. “I’m not a bad guy. I wanna help.”

The Doctor glared at her. “Then why did you help destroy Boston?”

“I didn’t,” Sophia objected. “I tried to save it.”

“Save your lies. You were with them monsters. Do you know how many people died? Do you know what you have caused?”

“I tried to stop them,” Sophia told her earnestly. “I fought them, or at least I tried. Honest.”

“You showing them you’re the boss doesn’t mean that you were anything but a monster. The same as them.”

“I wasn’t showing them I was the boss, I was trying to stop them!” Sophia said more forcefully.

“Then why wait so long?” Doctor Simone questioned.

“You don’t understand,” Sophia said. “I was scared. I wanted to do something, but I’m a coward, okay!?”

“Is that so,” the Doctor said, sounding unconvinced.

“I’ve had a really shitty couple of days, okay!” Sophia snapped, making Doctor Simone flinch. “If you’d just let me explain what happened, then you’d know.”

“Then explain it to me,” the Doctor said. “What happened? I want to know all of the events leading up to you becoming one of those creatures.”

“Well, it started with a dream,” Sophia began, still feeling a little annoyed. “Two, actually.”

“Really...” Doctor Simone said, clearly not believing her. “It started with dreams?”

“Yes,” Sophia confirmed, not liking her attitude. “In the dream, I was a giant, and I was looming over the city. Everything seemed calm as I moved about. Then there was this voice. It wanted me to destroy, to kill. It sounded evil. In the dream, at least the first dream, I surrendered to it.”

“And you didn’t in the second dream?” Doctor Simone asked.

“No, but it didn’t matter. In the second dream, I grew bigger than the city and killed everyone anyway.”

“How long before the Zero-Point was this?”

“Zero-Point?” Sophia asked, unfamiliar with the term. “What’s that?”

“The destruction of Boston,” the Doctor explained.

Sophia cleared her throat. “Well, the dream happened that morning, I think. I awoke and struggled to get my clothes on. I had grown, and I guess I didn’t realize it.”

“How could you not realize that you had grown? I would think it would be very noticeable, especially if, as you said, you couldn’t get your clothes on.”

“I mean, I kinda knew. I just didn’t want to accept it. It was after lunch when the second growth spurt hit, and I ran. I had to get away.”

“Why did you flee?”

“The voice was in my head again, and it was telling me to kill. I was scared I was going to hurt my family.”

“I see,” Doctor Simone said as she crossed one leg over the other. “Go on.”

“I fled in my car. At first, I didn’t have a destination, but eventually, I pulled over. I stayed there at the side of the road until the evening when I grew again, and this time I didn’t stop until I was naked and taller than the trees.”

“Did it hurt?”

“No. It felt… Good.”

The Doctor frowned. “Good?” she asked. “As in sexual?”

Sophia shook her head. “No, well, kinda. It was more like that feeling when someone does something really nice and gives you attention, but five times stronger.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. It was like tingles down the spine and a feeling of euphoria. It usually isn’t sexual, but in this case, it kinda was.”

“Are you referring to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response?” the Doctor asked.

“I don’t know what it’s called. All I know is that it felt good.”

“I see.” The Doctor webbed her fingers. “We want to know what made you all turn into the monstrous killers you became. You said there was a voice?”

“Don’t include me with them, please,” Sophia pleaded.

Doctor Simone ignored her as she repeated the question. “You said there was a voice. Tell me about it?”

“Yeah, well it was evil. It killed me when I refused to do what it wanted. Somehow I was resurrected, and I found my corpse in the woods.”

“So that was your corpse?” the Doctor asked.

“You found it?” Sophia asked, despite knowing it was inevitable. It hadn’t exactly been well hidden, not from the sky at least.

“We found what was left of it,” Doctor Simone answered. “It was degrading at an unprecedented rate, like a sand statue in the wind. What I want to know is how that is possible? How can you be dead yet be here?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t suppose you would know. Death is unknowable. Anyway, please continue.”

“Well, after finding my corpse...” she trailed off. “I should probably mention the other voice.”

“Other voice?”

“This one was the opposite of the evil one. It sounded kind and pleasant. It was what resurrected me and told me that the people of Boston would die if I didn’t do anything. So, I headed that way but had an unfortunate encounter with a stray Giantess near Framingham, I think.”

“The one that got away,” Doctor Simone commented.

“Got away?”

The Doctor shifted nervously in her chair. “Forget I said anything. Please continue.”

“Well, she inserted me.”

“Inserted you?”

Sophia was feeling rather uncomfortable, but she figured that if she was honest. At least then they wouldn’t have a reason to distrust her, or she hoped. “She inserted me into her vagina,” she said, closing her eyes. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant memory.

Doctor Simone was disgusted. “Are you serious? Were you still a giantess at this point?”

Sophia looked at her and shook her head. “Oh no. After I had died, I woke up normal. I didn’t grow again until later.”

“I see. Please continue.”

“Well, I thought I was dead. But then I awoke in some kind of liquid. I struggled and was able to break free.”

“Were you still inside the other giantess?”

“No, I sorta hatched out of a giant purple egg. I didn’t realize it at the time. My brain was sorta in a haze. But looking back, I was surrounded by the things.”

“Purple eggs,” Doctor Simone repeated, as she once more shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Continue.”

“Well, I stumbled back to my apartment to find it empty.”

“Were you expecting someone to be there?”

“My friend and roommate, Brooke. But she was gone. I changed clothes and headed back out. Not long after that, I found Charlie.”

“Who is Charlie?”

“A soldier,” Sophia explained, closing her eyes. “I helped him, but he was injured.”

“I assume he died?”

“Yes,” Sophia said, wondering if she should tell them that a giantess had eaten the two of them. She decided that it wasn’t something she should withhold. “We were eaten,” she said out loud, focusing back on the Doctor.

Doctor Simone’s eyebrows raised. “Eaten?”

“Yes. One of the giantesses. She ate us whole.”

“Is that how this Charlie died?”

“It wouldn’t have helped,” Sophia said softly, closing her eyes again. It seemed crazy to her that she still felt so bad about his death. She had only known him for a few hours, but she felt like she had known him for a lot longer.

“Are you okay?” the Doctor asked.

Sophia realized she was crying. She quickly nodded, but with her wrists bound, she couldn’t wipe away the tears. “I had to grow to escape. The voice told me too. The good voice, not the evil one.”

“And Charlie died?”

“He survived but died shortly after. I couldn’t save him.”

“What did you do with the body?”

“I left him,” Sophia said with sorrow. “I couldn’t do anything else.”

“And at which point did you grow to five thousand feet?”

Sophia looked at the Doctor, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Five thousand feet?” she repeated, wanting clarification that she had heard her right. “Did you say five  _ thousand  _ feet?”

“That was your estimated scale before the nuclear detonations.”

“I thought it was a thousand at most,” Sophia said, feeling her pulse quicken. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, the second highest was estimated at two-thousand and fifty feet at their apex.”

Sophia couldn’t believe it. Five thousand feet? It seemed unreal. It seemed impossible. There was no way she could have been that big. None. Surely the ground would have fractured beneath her weight. She couldn’t have been that tall, but thinking back to how the world around her had looked, she could believe it, even if it was terrifying. No one should have that kind of power. No one.

“Five thousand,” she repeated, still in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“Certain. Now continue, please,” the Doctor urged.

Sophia slowly nodded. “Yeah, I um… Where was I?”

“You had abandoned Charlie after his death,” the Doctor reminded her.

“Right. Well, I was found by survivors in the subway. They were making their way from station to station heading south past Quincy to Braintree. But there were these creatures.”

“What kind of creatures?”

“Imagine dogs, but black like insects and with mandibles. They killed some people, dragged others off. Then the giantesses tried to get through the roof.”

“Tell me more about these insect-dog things?”

“They were less like dogs and more like insects. Hairless and I think they were in two or three segments. Could they have been some kind of giant insect?”

“Are you certain that is what you saw?” Doctor Simone asked her. “We, as of yet, have no indication of anything supernatural or out of the ordinary except for the giants.”

“I’m sure. It’s not just the giantesses, there’s a darkness that’s come to this world, and I am supposed to be part of the light that will stop it before it can destroy and kill us all.”

“It sounds to me like you have a God-complex,” Doctor Simone commented. “Do you see yourself as some kind of comic book hero, or deity come to save us?”

“No, of course not,” Sophia objected pulling a face. “I want to help people, sure. Always have done. I wanted to be a doctor, you know, but the sight of blood makes me queasy.”

“You must have a fun time every month, then.”

“My blood is fine. It’s other people’s I can’t stand.” Sophia closed her eyes as she thought back to the moment she started to grow inside the subway. “Down in the subway when the giantesses tried to smash their way through. I knew I had to do something. I told the others to run, and they did. I grew and tried to hold the roof up to give them time. Eventually, they came through and hoisted me out like a baby out of a crib. It was at that moment I knew I had to do something, so I grew and attacked. That’s when the nukes went off.”

“And you shrunk,” the Doctor said. “How did you escape?”

“I was saved by the entity of light.”

“Entity of light?” Doctor Simone asked.

“No other way to describe it,” Sophia said. “It told me that darkness had come to Earth and that other Guardians and I had to stop it. I had to find them, and together we would stop this world from falling into the darkness.”

“Sounds fanciful,” the Doctor commented.

Sophia had to agree. “Yeah, it does. But nothing about this is fanciful. It’s real. I grew to five thousand feet, remember? I’m not the one claiming that either, that’s you.”

“Quite,” Doctor Simone said. “What happened next?”

“I went home and was captured.”

“And you found yourself here. I have to say, parts of this sound, as I just said, fanciful. Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the insect things. Honestly, after what’s already happened, I don’t know what’s real any more. I’m half expecting you to yell surprise and for the others to burst through that door and tell me this has all been some sick joke.”

“I know what you mean,” Sophia agreed.

Doctor Simone slowly stood up. “Is that everything?”

Sophia nodded. “Yes, that’s everything.”

“Very well,” she said as she picked up the folding chair and folded it back up. “Thank you for your cooperation, Sophia Moreno. I shall see you tomorrow.”

As she started for the door, Sophia lurched in her shackles. “What about these?” she called out after the woman. “Are you leaving me chained up?”

The Doctor paused and turned around. “Until we can be certain you are not a threat, you shall remain secured.”

With that, Doctor Simone opened the door and left, closing the door shut behind her with a loud click as it locked.

Once more, Sophia was all alone with nothing but her thoughts.


	15. More Than A Dream

Sophia had never felt as bored as she did at that moment. The anxiety had left hours ago, or she hoped it was hours ago. Time had no meaning when there were no windows or clocks. She was hoping to fall asleep and pass the time that way. It wasn’t like there was anything else she could do.

Long ago, she had stopped trying to get anyone’s attention. There was just no point. Other than the doctor, she hadn’t seen or heard anyone. It was starting to wear thin in all honesty. She would have thought there would be more interest in her considering what she could do. But apart from the blood sample they had taken and her telling the good Doctor Simone everything she knew, they hadn’t shown any interest at all.

Sophia stifled a yawn and blinked away some tired tears from her eyes. She then grimaced as her stomach rumbled. So far, she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink, and she was starting to feel both parched and hungry.

She took in a deep breath. “Just wondering?” she shouted. “If I’m gonna get something to eat or drink soon? I know my rights. You can’t treat me this way.”

There was no response, but at this point, she hadn’t expected one. She wondered if this was part of the test. To starve her out to see how long she could last? She wouldn’t put it past them to do something like that, especially to someone they saw as a monstrosity like her.

With another yawn, Sophia closed her eyes. She would have preferred it if the lights weren’t so bright. It would have made it easier for her to fall asleep. As it was, even with her eyes closed, she could see the glow through her eyelids. It wasn’t bright, but it was still enough to bother her, at least for a while. Eventually, her fatigue began to overwhelm her, and she started to doze off. Soon after, she fell asleep.

Her slumber did not bring peace.

Blurred colors surrounded her like a schizophrenic water painting, swirling and pulsating in waves. She saw flashes of purple then a deep beige before the world around her began to coalesce into what appeared to be some kind of military base in the middle of a desert.

The base itself was far below her, as though she had turned into a giantess, but the scale was wrong, and she couldn’t see her legs. It was more as though she was flying or observing from high above. She was acutely aware that this wasn’t real, yet she couldn’t call it a dream as it felt like neither. It didn’t feel like the other dreams she’d had where she had become a giantess either, it was something new, but she couldn’t figure out what it was, or where she was other than a desert.

Apart from the weird, otherworldly feeling she was experiencing, nothing was happening. Dust blew, and she could see people and vehicles moving around down below. She started to wonder if she was having an out-of-body experience and if astral projection was yet another ability. If that’s what this was, it was hard to tell, though considering absolutely nothing was happening she doubted this was a dream. Dreams tended to have things happen in them other than watching people go about their daily business from up on high.

The sounds broke the serenity of gunshots. At first, Sophia didn’t know what was happening, but a blonde giantess three-times the size of the national average exploded through the wall of a hangar-looking building. It wasn’t over; the threat still existed and was very real.

A siren began to blare as the tiny soldiers opened fire on the expanding woman. The giantess shielded herself with her arm, but the gunfire started to tear at her flesh, and an explosion from an RPG rocked her Amazon-like form. As the giant fell backwards in agony, another giantess smashed her way out of the side of the building. This second one was twice the size of the first, and bullets seemingly did nothing except anger the titan.

Sophia watched as the giantess ran forward, scattering the soldiers that managed to get out of the way and crushing those that didn’t. It was going to be a slaughter, yet Sophia was unable to do anything but watch from her vantage point up in the clouds.

With a hefty kick, she sent a truck flying, its frame bent and twisted as it hurtled over the fence surrounding the facility. As it hit the ground it pirouetted, chunks of steel flying in all directions. The giantess was far from done as she continued to slam her foot down in an attempt to flatten the comparatively tiny soldiers beneath her feet. She laughed loudly when her foot successfully found some targets and crushed them flat, the pavement smeared with their pulverized corpses.

With another heavy stamp of her foot, part of the ground gave way, and the giantess stumbled then fell, her colossal body crushing a small building. This only made her laugh harder, as though it was the funniest thing in the world.

Sophia’s attention was drawn away from her when the roof of the hangar the previous two giantesses had emerged from exploded as a third giantess expanded out of it, throwing her long black hair back as though she was a supermodel in a shampoo commercial. The giantess caressed her body before climbing out of the half-destroyed hangar only to be struck by two missiles, sending her staggering backwards.

Out of nowhere, a military attack helicopter flew overhead sending two more missiles right into the giantess’ face. It swiveled around and fired even more missiles before the giggling giantess from earlier came to her friend’s rescue. With a clap of her hands, the attack helicopter was crushed in a fiery explosion that caused the giantess to shriek out, clutching her burned palms to her chest.

The two titans looked at each other for a moment, before both fled into the desert, leaving nothing but destruction and death behind them. Sophia wished she could stop them, but she still couldn’t move. All she could do was watch as they escaped to kill another day.

With the two giantesses out of sight, the world below Sophia began to fade away until there was nothing but darkness and the soft sound of air moving through vents. Opening her eyes, Sophia found that she was back in the room and with a shake of her arms and legs, she found that she was still secured to the bed.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes again and waited for sleep to claim her once more.


	16. Inhuman

Sophia  a woke with a start. She squinted and looked over towards the door to see the doctor was back with the folding chair. At a guess, her closing the door was what had woken her up, but she didn’t know for sure. One thing was certain, though, her arms were starting to ache as was her lower back. She knew that if she were able to get up and stretch it would probably ease off, but there was little chance of that happening.

If only that had been the only thing giving her some grief. She was also hungry and thirsty, which only added to her misery and she didn’t know how long it would be before they gave her something, if they even intended on giving her something. For all she knew, they planned on starving her.

“Good morning,” Doctor Simone said with a fake smile as unfolded the chair and sat down.

“Can I get something to eat and drink?” Sophia asked, deciding to get the request out of the way.

The smile faded. “The powers that be have decided that you are to go without. They want to see how your body responds to having food and water withheld.”

“I can tell you how my body will respond. I’ll die,” Sophia said, pointing out what she believed should be obvious.

Doctor Simone slowly shook her head. “We can’t know for certain. We don’t even know if you’re fully human anymore. Considering what you are, what you can become, I’d say you’re not.”

Sophia didn’t like them thinking of her as anything other than human. She still felt human, and the ache in her stomach and the dryness of her throat and mouth told her that she still needed food and water to survive. Hopefully, they would see that before she died. Not that she would let it get that far. She was still planning on getting out of this somehow.

“So,” Sophia began, as she remembered the blood the doctor had taken yesterday. “Did you find anything in my blood?”

“We are still studying it.”

“And?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know if anything can be done,” Sophia said.

“You want a cure?” the doctor asked.

“It would be nice,” she said.

“Well, in that case, we found some abnormalities.”

“What kind?”

“The kind we can’t explain.”

“So you don’t have a cure?”

“We still can’t cure diseases that we understand,” the doctor pointed out. “What you have, what you can do. It is so far beyond our understanding of what should and shouldn’t be possible, that I honestly don’t know if there will ever be a cure. Other than death.”

Sophia didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “So you’re gonna kill me?”

“No, at least I don’t think they’re planning on it. At least not just yet. One positive is that we are going to start screening people.”

“Screening people?” Sophia asked.

“The abnormalities in your blood were also found in another subject,” Doctor Simone explained.

“You have someone else locked up?”

“They are deceased, I’m afraid.”

“What will you do if you find others with these abnormalities in their blood?” Sophia asked. “Kill them?”

“That is for others to decide.”

Sophia wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “What does that mean?”

“It means what I said,” the doctor uttered, her voice taking on a hard edge. “It’s for someone else to decide, not me.”

“What do you think will happen?”

Doctor Simone rubber her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding a little exasperated. “I wish we didn’t have to do anything at all, but you are too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.”

Sophia wanted to object, but she knew she was right. Having the power to grow magnitudes in size on a whim was dangerous. In fact, it was more dangerous than  a nuclear bomb. There were no secret codes, nor were there safety protocols. All she had to do was  _ want  _ to grow, and she grew. How big could she become? Honestly, she didn’t know, but it was at least five thousand feet, and it terrified her to think she could grow even bigger. What if she couldn’t stop? What if she outgrew the world? Just the thought made her shudder.

Sophia decided to change the subject. “I haven’t seen anyone else, yet,” she commented.

“You won’t, at least not for now,” the doctor answered. “I don’t know when that will change. It’s not my decision.”

“I wish I could go home,” Sophia sighed.

“That’s not going to happen,” Doctor Simone said firmly. “Perhaps ever.”

“Can you at least let me out of these restraints? My arms hurt.”

“Sorry, but I’m not authorized. We’re not at that level of trust yet. Nowhere near.”

Sophia stared up at the ceiling. She wondered what would have happened in the subway if she hadn’t grown? Would it have collapsed on top of them? Or would they have all managed to escape before that had happened? Retracing the events in her head, she believed that they might have been able to get out of the station before the foot had come through the roof. At the time, she had been convinced that she had to hold it up to give them time, but now she wasn’t so sure.

What she was sure of, was that if she hadn’t grown when she did, that she wouldn’t be here now. She would be with Brooke. But that wouldn’t stop her giant deformed corpse in the woods from being found. They would have identified it eventually, and that would put unwanted light on her, and she might have still ended up here.

Perhaps this was where all roads led, to a small room, chained to a bed.

Sophia turned to look at the doctor. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“Observation.”

Sophia glanced at the cameras. “I thought that’s what the cameras were for?”

“Yes, well I came here for other reasons as well. Reasons I should probably get to.” The doctor stood up, pulling a small flashlight from her pocket.

“What’s that for?”

“Observation,” the doctor said as she shone the flashlight into Sophia’s left eye, then her right. “Interesting,” she commented.

That didn’t sound comforting. “What’s interesting? Is something wrong with my eyes?”

“Simply making some observations,” the doctor said before shining the light into her ear. “Hmmm.”

“What?”

“I’m simply making some observations, don’t worry about it.”

Sophia was quickly starting to get tired of that word. “You keep saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“Observations.”

“I keep saying it because that’s what I’m doing. Making observations.” Doctor Simone pocketed the small flashlight before she picked up the folding chair and folded it back up.

“Going again?” Sophia asked.

“Yes, I am. I shall see you this afternoon for more...” she paused and smiled a genuine smile. “For more observations.” With that, she left, closing the door shut behind her.

* * *

With the cuff of the blood pressure machine tightly fastened around Sophia’s upper arm, the doctor began to monitor her, before once more shining a flashlight into her eyes. The fact that Sophia was still bolted to the bed, her arms above her head made it all the more uncomfortable.

Pulling the Velcro, Doctor Simone took the cuff off of her and jotted something down on a sheet of paper. “Your blood pressure is starting to get a little low, and your eyes are a little dry,” she commented.

Sophia could guess why. “Maybe because I haven’t had any water or food yet?”

“Most likely,” Doctor Simone conceded. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you to make sure it doesn’t get worse.”

“Why are you doing this?” Sophia demanded to know. “Why are you treating me this way?”

“Sorry, I’m simply doing what I’m told. I don’t know the reasoning. I am here to do some tests and observe.”

“And what about the Hippocratic oath of doing no harm?” Sophia asked. “Or doesn’t that apply because of what I am?”

Doctor Simone opened her mouth and hesitated for a moment. “What about the people of Boston?” she asked, looking away. “A historic city, now a flattened radioactive wasteland all because of you and your kind.”

“My kind?” Sophia questioned. “I’m not one of them.”

“You can turn into one of those giant monsters can you not? You are the same.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m like them. They wanted nothing but to kill and destroy. I want to help and save. There’s your difference. I’m a victim in this too, you know.”

“Only if what you say is true,” Doctor Simone said with a look of disgust. “All those people are still dead.”

Sophia found herself growing angry. “I haven’t lied!” she yelled, causing the doctor to take a step back in surprise. “I just wanted to live my life, get good grades, get a job. I didn’t want any of this shit!” Sophia tried to blink as her eyes started to burn. “My life is over; it’s done, finished, fucking over! Do you know what it’s like to see fear in your mom and dad’s eyes? They were scared of me. They think I’m a monster and maybe I am, but I didn’t want to be. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to see love in my mom and dad’s eyes, I wanna go out on dates, maybe get married one day, have kids, but I don’t think I can ever have that. Not now, because everything I had striven for, everything I wanted to be has been ripped away and smashed like glass on a rock.”

Doctor Simone broke eye contact and looked down at her feet. “I...” she stammered, unable to speak.

“I’m locked up, Doctor. I’m chained to a bed and haven’t been given any food or water. I don’t even know if I’ll live to see the sky, or a sunrise, or anything ever again. I don’t know what you’re planning on doing to me and I’m scared. I don’t even know where I am.”

“You are in a secure facility, and here you are safe.”

“I don’t feel safe.”

“If we wanted you dead you would have never woken up.” The doctor hesitated, taking a glance towards the door. “But I’ll see what I can do about getting you some food and water. And I’ll see if we can get those restraints removed, at least for a short while.”

“Thank you,” Sophia said.

Doctor Simone made her way to the door and pulled it open. She glanced back at her. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said before leaving.

Sophia stared after her. She had a feeling that she was starting to get through to the good doctor. She hoped she was, because she honestly needed a friend right now, even if that friend was one of the ones responsible for her incarceration. The scary thing about this was that even the most vile rapists and mass murderers got a trial. She doubted she would, and her only crime was being able to expand her mass and density in a way that broke humanity’s current understanding of science.

She remembered the story of a scientist before the discovery of the atomic and subatomic. He had stated that science was almost done as they had discovered everything. Then, when they had found the existence of atoms, science began anew, and it turned out humanity still knew next to nothing. Sophia didn’t know how true it was a true story, but she wondered if her abilities revealed yet another scientific blind-spot?

It made her almost fearful of what else might be possible that was previously thought impossible. Humanity couldn’t face it alone, that was why the Entity of Light; as she had started calling it, had reincarnated her. It had mentioned other “Guardians”, and she knew that sooner or later she would have to escape from this place and seek them out; otherwise, there might not be a humanity or anything else left.

In truth, Sophia felt conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted everything to be back the way it was. This was unarguably the strongest feeling she had. There was also the other feeling, the one she’d had when she had grown to stop the subway from caving in, the feeling she’d had when she had started to actually fight back. It was a feeling that was slowly growing stronger, of accepting what she had become. It was a feeling of wanting to protect. In some ways, it had always been there waiting to be unleashed.

For now, though, she had to accept the circumstance she found herself, and once more, she mentally scolded herself for being caught the way she had. The truck had come out of nowhere, and she hadn’t been able to avoid it. Maybe she should have been more observant, and perhaps she should have gone another way.

There wasn’t much she could do about it now, though other than accept her fate.


	17. The Meeting

The door burst open, making Sophia jump in surprise. Unfortunately, being restrained meant that she jolted her left shoulder. “Ouch,” she yelped, offering the doctor an annoyed look.

“Good morning,” the doctor greeted as she walked over to her, carrying a hollow circular device in her hands. It looked suspiciously like a collar, a thick mechanical collar and that put Sophia on edge. She looked past the doctor at three men dressed in army green as they entered the room behind her. Two of them were armed with large rifles, the third holding what appeared to be folded clothes with chained shackles resting on top.

“What’s going on?” Sophia asked, becoming nervous.

Doctor Simone glanced back at the two armed me. “We are going for a walk.” She raised the device in her hands. “Unfortunately you are going to have to wear this collar.”

One of the men in green spoke up. “It’s an explosive collar. You try and escape or do anything we think is dangerous and your head pops off like a cork.”

Sophia didn’t like that mental image one bit.

“Well, in that case, I’m fine where I am,” she said, firmly against having anything explosive put around any part of her body. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Doctor Simone looked rather uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Sophia, but there is no choice here. The restraints are coming off, and the collar is going on.”

The two men raised their rifles and pointed them right at her, while the doctor opened the collar and began her approach.

“Don’t,” Sophia pleaded.

“I’m sorry, but I have to.”

Sophia began to thrash around in the limits her restraints allowed. “Please,” she begged. “I don’t need a bomb around my neck! I’m not going to harm you, please!”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor repeated, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “There is no choice.”

Two of the men held her down while the doctor moved in with the collar. Sophia began to thrash around even more as she screamed at them to stop. As the two men struggled to hold her down, her blanket and the only thing covering her nakedness slipped, revealing her generous breasts.

Suddenly, Sophia felt something cold and hard press up against her chest, and she froze. Looking down, she saw a rifle pointed directly at her heart.

“Please, don’t,” Sophia said with genuine fear.

With a loud click, Alyssia placed the collar around her neck. Sophia closed her eyes with a sigh. This was it. With a press of a button, they could now blow her head off.

The three of them took a step back, and Doctor Simone retrieved the clothes from the third man before asking them to release her restraints. With some reluctance they did, once more taking a step back, but this time also raising their weapons.

“Here,” Doctor Simone said, holding out the clothes.

With caution, Sophia slowly climbed off of the bed. Her legs and arms ached from being stuck in the same position for so long, and just the act of standing made her feel dizzy. She stumbled slightly, and the doctor caught her.

“Step away, Doctor,” one of the men said.

Doctor Simone did as instructed while Sophia rolled her shoulders in an attempt to get the aches out of them. As she moved her head from side to side, something didn’t feel quite right. She reached for her head and found stubble where her hair should be. She had suspected, considering her head felt cold, but she hadn’t thought they had actually done it.

“You shaved my head!?” Sophia cried out in shock.

“We didn’t touch your hair,” Doctor Simone told her firmly.

“Then why am I bald? Did my hair fall out?”

“You can form a second skin around your body, correct? A sort of exoskeleton?”

Sophia frowned. “Uh… Yeah, why?”

“From the report that I was allowed to read when you formed this exoskeleton around your body and head, it severed your hair.”

“I cut my own hair off?”

“Correct,” Doctor Simone said with a nod.

“But I liked my hair.”

“I’m sorry.”

One of the soldiers barked at the doctor. “We’ve got to get this done, Doc! We can’t leave ’em waiting.”

“Of course,” Doctor Simone said as she held out the clothes.

“Thanks,” Sophia muttered as she took them and unfolded them.

It was a gray full-body suit of some sort. While it wasn’t exactly fashionable, or something she would usually be caught dead in, it was certainly better than walking around in the nude.

Starting with her left leg, then her right, she put it on, before awkwardly sticking her hands through the arms. With that done, she zipped it up all the way to her neck, while casting a glare at the soldiers who had been staring at her the whole time. She didn’t appreciate them gawking at her naked body.

That was when they attached the shackles. First were the two chained ankle cuffs, then the wrist cuffs.

Sophia felt like a prisoner on death row, and it unsettled her. Still, regardless of that at least she was no longer secured to the bed. Though she certainly could have done without the bomb around her neck.

Sophia looked at the doctor. “So, where are we going?”

One of the soldiers answered for her. “Shut up, and follow the doctor.”

Sophia gave him another glare. He responded by shoving his rifle in her face. Thankfully, this earned him a reprimand.

“Lower your weapon,” Doctor Simone said. “You are here to ensure my safety, nothing more.”

He did as he was told, but he didn’t look happy about it. Sophia decided not to push him any further and kept her eyes low as she followed Doctor Simone out of the room and into the corridor. While the third soldier went his own way, the other two moved behind her, their weapons raised at the ready. The earlier feeling that she was like a prisoner going to her execution only intensified with each step as they began to walk forward.

As they went left at a T-junction, some soldiers walked past, giving them a wide berth. They stared at her like she was an alien from another planet, which made Sophia feel small and alone. She knew that she had to accept that they saw her as a horrific monster capable of terrible things, and in truth, they weren’t that far off. That didn’t change the fact that she didn’t mean these people any harm and she had to convince them, or she had to escape. Those were her only two options.

The group slowed as they approached a guarded room. Two soldiers who were stood at either side of the door took one look at them and gave the doctor a nod. With a swift rehearsed action, they both opened the doors for them before the four stepped inside. Sophia didn’t recognize a single face, at least until she did. Sat there in the middle was Vice President Heather Fenton. Sat next to her was an older decorated military man that had a fierce face which Sophia found a little unsettling. Especially with the deep glare he was giving her.

Doctor Simone gestured to a vacant chair that faced the assemblage, and Sophia sat down, her heart thumping in her chest. She felt like a freak on display as all eyes were planted firmly on her.

The doctor tipped her head at the Vice President. “Madam President, gentlemen,” she greeted much to Sophia’s surprise. Fenton was the President now? She wondered what happened, but knew that even if she asked, she probably wouldn’t get an answer, so she remained silent.

President Fenton stared at Sophia, her face unreadable. “Is this her?”

Doctor Simone nodded. “Yes, this is Sophia Moreno.”

“A pretty thing,” Fenton commented.

The decorated officer folded his arms. “Remember, this thing is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.”

To Sophia’s surprise, Doctor Simone took her side. “I don’t believe she was one of the ones responsible for the destruction, at least not intentionally. I believe what she told us is true.”

The officer dismissed it. “This thing would say anything to avoid getting her head lopped off and her body thrown in an incinerator, because I tell you, that’s the only way to be certain this thing is dead.”

President Fenton looked at him. “General Vaughn, while I appreciate the concern, I believe we should hear it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.” The new President looked Sophia in the eyes. “Do you know what is going on?” she asked. “Do you know what caused this?”

Sophia cleared her throat before she began. “I don’t know much, but from what I gathered, there are two entities. One is light, and the other is darkness.”

One of the officers scoffed at that. “Preposterous. Superstitious garbage.”

Another had a different take. “What if this is the Rapture?” he asked. “What if this is the end times?”

General Vaughn shut him down immediately. “I believe we should focus on what currently is, not what might be.” The General looked Sophia in the eyes. “Whatever is happening, one thing is certain; we need to find a way of neutralizing these creatures, and we have a test subject right here.”

President Fenton raised a hand. “Please allow the girl to speak.”

“That isn’t a girl,” Vaughn balked.

The President wasn’t impressed with his attitude. “I am aware of your feeling on the matter, and I don’t believe your proposal is practical, not when we still know so little about these aberrations of humanity.”

Sophia didn’t like the sound of any of that, not from General Vaughn or the President. She didn’t want to be experimented on, or seen as an aberration. She wanted them to let her go.

Vaughn looked to the doctor. “At least we can start screening people’s blood, thanks to Alyssia.”

“That’s Doctor Simone to you,” the doctor responded. “And it has been decided to only screen females at this point in time.”

“Why is that?” the President asked.

“So far we only know of women that have been affected,” the doctor explained. “It will be faster to focus on one sex at a time. We’ll get through more people that way.”

“Makes sense,” President Fenton conceded. “I have already been tested.”

“And came out clean, as have I,” Doctor Simone said.

President Fenton looked back at Sophia. “And what of this exoskeleton she can manifest around her?”

Vaughn answered. “So far we have seen none of the others from one. It seems that this creature here may be unique in that regard.”

Doctor Simone added. “We don’t know what it consists of or how strong it is or anything.”

“Can you get a sample?” the President asked, continuing to look at Sophia.

Vaughn folded his arms. “Given the subject is willing.”

Sophia didn’t like the way they were talking about her, as though she wasn’t even there. If they simply asked, then she would be willing to do what they asked, within reason. She didn’t see them as her enemy, but, unfortunately, they certainly saw her as theirs.

President Fenton addressed the doctor. “What would happen if her blood was transfused into a normal human?”

Doctor Simone shook her head. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Could it reproduce her abilities in the recipient?” the President asked.

“Oh, no. I believe the blood is a result, not a cause of the abilities. To reproduce her abilities would probably require changes to her genetic code that we cannot hope to comprehend.”

“I see,” President accepted before she looked to the General. “And what of reports of the giant mermaid that has been spotted in the Pacific?”

The General was dismissive. “I don’t hold much stock in Hawaiian fishermen who claim they were saved from an attack by vicious sea monsters.”

“None of them was Hawaiian or fishermen,” Fenton corrected.

“Regardless, I wouldn’t put too much faith in their claims.”  


“I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand,” one of the other officers warned. “Not after what’s happened already.”

“We have to, otherwise what’s next? Bigfoot? Loch-Ness Monster? Godzilla? Anal probings from little green men from Venus? Where do we draw the line on what we believe?”

“Little green men are supposedly from Mars,” Doctor Simone said jokingly with a slight smile. “And anal probings tend to be done by gray aliens.”

“This isn’t a joke,” General Vaughn snapped. “We have to be careful about what we believe and only act when we have evidence.”

“We might have evidence,” the President said. “There is phone camera footage from a cruise ship of a giant mermaid waving at them from afar.”

Vaughn went slightly red in the face. “I wasn’t aware of that. I will have to investigate the videos for myself.”

“I should warn you, the lady is bearing all, at least from the waist up,” the President said, before looking back at Sophia. “The question is, what does our guest know about her and does she know if there are others?”

Sophia shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m supposed to be a Guardian, and there are supposed to be others like me. I wish I could tell you more, but the entity, or whatever it was wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information.”

Vaughn raised his voice. “I wouldn’t trust a word this goddamn thing says. She helped murder thousands of civilians.”

The President glanced at him.” I saw the footage we were able to capture just before the bombs fell. She appeared to be fighting them.”

“I’m not so sure,” Vaughn rebuked. “It could have been a show of power. She was the biggest, so by right, she saw herself as their leader.”

“Bullshit!” Sophia shouted out in absolute denial.

In an instant, every gun in the room was pointing at her. She shrunk into her chair, keeping her head down. She knew she had to keep her cool if she ever wanted to get out of this situation, but that was hard when she was being accused of being a part of something so grotesque.

The President addressed her. “Please, tell us your side of the story.”

“I was trying to stop them,” Sophia told them. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it. I was trying to protect survivors in the subway that were heading south. I had to buy them some time, please, it’s the truth.” Sophia closed her eyes. “Do… Do you know if any of them survived? They were headed to Braintree. Do you know if any made it out?”

Vaughn answered aggressively. “Yes, people survived, despite your efforts to kill them all. You’re dangerous, too dangerous to let live and if it were up to me, you’d be dead already.”

President Fenton rose from her seat. “I believe you have made that obvious, General Vaughn. I have seen enough. I have to attend an international summit and try and do the impossible.” She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her palms. “The unfortunate fact is that what has happened is literally unbelievable and I have to make the other nations of the UN and in NATO believe it’s not only possible but that it did happen, because as far as they are concerned, we dropped nukes on a city for no discernible reason and that the only logical explanation in their eyes is that somehow the entire Greater Boston area was afflicted with the exact same hallucination that giant women attacked them. This whole mess might ruin this nation on a political scale as none has ever seen. My predecessor has already had to step down, and I might be next.”

“They’re fools not to believe,” the officer that had mentioned the rapture earlier said.

Vaughn disagreed. “They’d be fools  _ to  _ believe it. Giant woman crushing a city. It’s preposterous, but it fucking happened.”

“Quite,” President Fenton agreed as she walked towards the door under escort. “Good day,” she then said before she left.

With her gone, Vaughn glared at Doctor Simone. “Get that thing back to its cell. Tomorrow you are to continue on with the tests. I’m heading back to Washington.”

“Understood,” Doctor Simone acknowledged.

With that, the general too left the room, and with a gesture from the doctor, Sophia stood up. With the same two men pointing guns at her back, Sophia was led back to her small cell. Thankfully, they didn’t shackle her to the bed, but they did keep her explosive collar and the cuffs on.

With her cell door locked, Sophia sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the reflective wall of the two-way mirror. What tomorrow would bring, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she probably wouldn’t like it.


	18. Testing

Sophia lurched awake only to be greeted by a pounding headache, a dry throat and an aching stomach. She didn’t feel well at all. She was weak, tired, miserable and felt like death. It wasn’t shocking when she hadn’t been fed and was now starting to feel cold. At least she wasn’t still chained to the bed.

She heard the now-familiar clanking of the door as it opened. Squinting, she looked over at Doctor Simone with bleary eyes. The woman was holding something, but she couldn’t make out what it was. She lifted her heavy chained arms to rub her eyes only to hit herself in the face with the metal cuffs eliciting a pained cry.

“Are you alright?” Doctor Simone asked.

“No,” Sophia said truthfully.

“That’s unfortunate,” she said. “You’ll be pleased to know that I brought you some food and water.”

The door suddenly burst open, and the two green-clad soldiers ran into the room. They didn’t look happy. “Doctor, you were supposed to wait for us.”

“I’m fine,” the doctor answered. “Just giving Sophia something to eat.”

“She’s dangerous, doctor, you shouldn’t be here on your own, especially now that she can move about. She could wrap those chains around your neck and strangle you.”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Doctor Simone said, smiling at Sophia. “Now sit up, I want to give you this.”

Awkwardly, Sophia pulled herself into a seated position and held out her hands as the doctor took a step forward and carefully passed her the tray, helping her lower it down until it was resting on her legs. Instantly, Sophia had grabbed the bottled water, unscrewed the cap and gulped it down until the bottle was empty.

“Easy, don’t drown yourself,” Doctor Simone said.

Sophia looked at her. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank us. It was clear that you needed food and water. I harassed them about it, and they finally relented.”

“Thanks, it means a lot, Doctor Simone.”

“Call me, Alyssia.”

“Doc,” one of the soldiers warned. “It’s not a good idea to get too attached to this thing.”

The doctor ignored him, keeping her focus on Sophia. “There is a question that has been on my mind,” Alyssia continued. “How energy converts when you grow? You should need to consume magnitudes more food and water to sustain yourself as you grow, but you don’t. The energy a four-eleven girl needs to survive is far less than a five thousand foot woman.”

“Then something else must be happening,” Sophia surmised.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, because there’s no known way you can make bones strong enough to support a being at five thousand feet either, at least not on Earth. You’d need either no gravity or very low gravity. So what if I’m not technically getting bigger? I could be entering a different spacial dimension or something.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“None of this does, Alyssia. I’m just throwing out ideas. I could be completely wrong.”

The doctor smiled at the mention of her name.

Sophia looked down at the plate of food. It was mash potato with an assortment of vegetables. Nothing too fancy, but at least it was something.

“You’ll need this,” Alyssia said as she handed over a plastic spork.

Instantly the two soldiers were not happy. “You’re giving her a weapon.”

“I don’t expect her to eat with her fingers,” the doctor rebuked.

The two men raised their guns. “As long as she has it, you should keep your distance.”

“Fine,” the doctor accepted as she moved to the other side of the room by the door next to the two armed men.

Sophia focused on her food and tried to take measured bites. It proved to be difficult, and before long, she was wolfing it down as though she was starving, which wasn’t that far from the truth. While mash potato on its own wasn’t something that she would normally scarf down, at that moment she was hungry enough to eat anything, even the broccoli.

“Feeling better?” Alyssia asked.

“A little,” Sophia said honestly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“What’s going to happen to me now?” Sophia asked, almost afraid of the response.

The doctor avoided answering the question. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Sophia.”

She headed out of the door, while one of the soldiers took the tray from Sophia and her utensil. The two then followed the doctor out, locking the door behind them.

Sophia didn’t know what to make of Alyssia’s lack of response apart from feeling concern. Her ultimate fate was unknown, but the way that General Vaugn had talked earlier she suspected that her time here might be terminal and not in a good way.

With a loud gurgle from her stomach, Sophia let out a loud acidic belch. Not long after that, her stomach began to roll and churn, making her feel sick. She knew, even while she was eating that she was stuffing it down too quickly and now she was going to pay the price. She just hoped she could keep what she had just eaten down because she didn’t like the idea of being locked in a room covered in vomit.

With no other option, she laid down on the bed, sweat glistening on her brow. Thankfully, the sickly feeling did pass, but her guts continued to churn as though her stomach were a washing machine. It made her wonder if they had put something in the food to see what her reaction would be? At this point, she wouldn’t put it past them, though she doubted Alyssia would have left her alone if she had. She would be here, waiting to see her reaction. No, this was simply her eating too quickly on an empty stomach, nothing more.

Or at least she hoped.

Eventually, the churning stopped, though not before the door had opened and Doctor Simone had stepped back inside flanked by the same two armed soldiers. The doctor herself looked a little down, which instantly put Sophia on edge.

“Please stand up and follow me,” Alyssia said, her voice taking on a somber tone.

Sophia was starting to feel more than a little anxious. Even so, she did as she was told. She clumsily climbed off of the bed, which was made difficult as her arms and legs were still cuffed and chained. She was concerned about where she was going, but it wasn’t like she could refuse, not when she had a bomb around her neck.

With guns pointed in her direction, she left her cell and followed Doctor Simone down the corridor with the two soldiers behind, their weapons aimed at her back. After passing several doors, they stepped into what appeared to be a clinic.

“Please sit down on the edge of that bed over there,” Alyssia said gesturing.

Sophia did as instructed and waited for the doctor to perform whatever tests she was going to do. Her only hope was that none of them was painful.

“I’m going to take another blood sample,” the doctor said, retrieving a needle.

In an instant, Sophia clenched up and closed her eyes. Her hatred of needles certainly hadn’t dulled over the last few days. If anything, it had grown worse because now she associated them with being secured immobile to the bed.

Keeping her eyes shut, Sophia felt the doctor grip her arm gently followed a few moments later she felt a small prick. She tried not to think about what was happening, and thankfully it was soon over.

“All done,” Alyssia said as Sophia opened her eyes. “Now, I need a saliva sample, so open your mouth.”

She did as instructed and opened wide. The doctor looked at her tongue before swabbing her mouth. Once that was done, she shone a light into her ears, then her eyes. Strangely, Sophia felt rather relaxed. Despite knowing the results of these tests could be used against her in the future, she also knew that these tests could lead to ways of killing those monsters out there and that was something she could definitely get behind.

Doctor Alyssia Simone took a step back and smiled at her. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a perfectly healthy young woman.”

“I’ve tried to look after myself,” Sophia answered, earning a glare from one of the soldier’s turned guard.

“Now,” Alyssia continued, “I want to see if I can get a sample of that epidermis exoskeleton you can form around your body. Do you know what it is, exactly?”

Sophia shook her head. “No idea. Didn’t know I could do it until I could.”

“Can you form it now?”

“I can try.” Sophia squinted as she started to concentrate. She could almost feel her skin starting to harden as she formed the gray exoskeleton around her torso like a long-sleeved leotard.

The doctor took a step back, her jaw going slack. “I’m not sure I can believe this even though I can see it with my own eyes. That is incredible.” Alyssia turned and opened a drawer, retrieving a sharp scalpel. “Can I take a sample?”

‘No’, was what she wanted to say, but Sophia knew that this was for science and also because she knew she didn’t have a choice. If she said no, then the doctor was obligated to take a sample anyway. At least by saying yes, she was under the false illusion that she was giving permission, even if she wasn’t really.

“Sure,” Sophia sighed.

Doctor Simone took a step forwards and carefully began to scrape at the exoskeleton. Sophia had half-expected it to hurt or at least feel uncomfortable. Instead, she could barely feel it.

“It’s very tough,” the doctor commented. “Do you mind if I try and cut some off.”

“I do mind, but I know you’re gonna do it anyway,” Sophia said.

“Sorry for this,” Alyssia offered as she tried to cut into the armored skin with her scalpel. “I can’t seem to be able to cut it.” She lifted the blade away from her arm and took a step back. “We’ll have to figure something out later.” She put the scalpel away. “Now, I want to perform a hearing test.”

“Sure.”

“We’ve got a sound isolation booth where we’ll perform the test. If you’ll follow me.”

Sophia followed her out of the room, with the two guys once again pointing their guns at her back.

It didn’t take long for them to arrive.

The isolation booth was almost exactly how she pictured it. It was a smallish room surrounded with some sort of padding. Sophia entered alone, and the door closed and locked behind her.

After a few minutes of waiting, she heard the doctor’s voice. “ _ Hello, Sophia. Now, if you can hear me raise your arm.” _

Sophia raised her left arm. “I can hear you,” she mumbled.

“ _Now, I am going to play a sound. You tell me when you start to hear it.”_

“Is this how hearing tests usually go?” Sophia asked. “I’ve never had one. Though as I understand it, it’s a sine wave or something to test the frequencies I can still hear. Is this test something like that?”

There was no answer, only silence. Instead of repeating herself, Sophia closed her eyes and concentrated. It was a good fifteen to twenty seconds later when she started to hear something that sounded like buzzing. She raised her hand again, and it stopped.

“ _Very interesting,”_ Alyssia said over the unseen speakers. “ _That might have been a fluke, so I’m going to play it again, but this time I’ll play it at the level you heard it at. I will start it at a random time. Raise your hand when you hear it.”_

Sophia nodded in confirmation and waited for the sound to play. Nothing. There continued to be nothing for a while. It wasn’t until she was starting to think that it was a fluke when she heard the sound again. She quickly raised her hand.

“ _Incredible. I want to try another sound, and I want you to tell me what it is.”_

“I can do that,” Sophia acknowledged as she once more listened to whatever sound was going to play. A few moments passed when she started to hear a faint whistle. “Whistle,” she said out loud.

“ _That sound is playing at a frequency that only dogs should be able to hear. Truly remarkable. I think we’ve satisfied that curiosity for the time being. Now it’s time for a vision test.”_

“I look forward to it.”

Not a minute later, Sophia was sat back in the clinic staring at the back wall where the eye chart lay. Doctor Simone sat on the corner of the desk and gestured towards it. “Hand over your left eye and read as far as you can.”

Sophia covered her left eye and began, reading it phonetically. “Eee eff pee, tee oh zee, ell pee eee dee.” she took in a breath then continued. “Pee eee see eff dee, eee dee eff see zee pee. Eff eee ell oh pee zee dee, dee eee eff pee oh tee eee see. Ell, eee, eff, oh, dee.” Sophia stopped and began to squint as she was starting to struggle. She thought it might be an ‘F’, but it also might be a ‘P’. After a few moments, the once blurred letters became surprisingly crisp. “Pee see tee, eff dee pee ell tee see eee oh, pee eee zee oh ell see eff tee dee.”

“There’s definitely nothing wrong with that eye,” Alyssia mused. “Try the other eye.”

Swapping eyes, Sophia read through the chart once more, this time having no trouble at all. After that, the doctor had her reread it outside in the corridor, which she did, only snubbing one or two letters on the bottom row.

“Unbelievable,” Alyssia said astounded by what she was witnessing. “I wonder if the enhanced eyesight and hearing is to compensate for when you grow into a giant?” she wondered out loud as she stepped into the corridor where Sophia was stood waiting. “Well, supposition can wait until later I should think. You have been a star today young lady, but I’ll let you get some rest. I’ll be sure to bring you something to eat later, okay?”

“Thanks,” Sophia said with a smile before she was taken back to her cell.

Perhaps things were going to turn out okay after all. She could only hope.


	19. A Hero in the Making

The blaring klaxons not only woke Sophia up but hurt her ears with their loud, screeching incessant blaring.

With a mixture of shock and confusion, Sophia scrambled out of bed and to her feet.

“What’s that noise?” she cried out, covering her ears with her chained hands in a futile attempt to block out the noise.

“What’s going on!?” she yelled to nobody as she made her way over to the door. As she expected, it was locked.

Sophia began to pace around the room; her heart thumping hard in her chest. She knew the klaxon wasn’t blaring for no reason, yet there wasn’t much she could do. She had to remind herself that she still had a bomb around her neck and she didn’t know if the exoskeleton she could form around her body could stop the blast from killing her.

Then, a frighteningly familiar deep rumble vibrated through the floor, one that she remembered from Boston. There were Giantesses here, and there was no doubt at all in her mind that the klaxon was for them.

She knew she had to do something, because if she didn’t, then not only was she dead but so was everyone else here at this facility. A second much more violent shaking only cemented her decision. She wasn’t going to allow what happened in Boston to repeat itself.

Closing her eyes, she began to focus. It was time to show them that she wasn’t the monster they thought she was. It was time to save the day, that was if she wasn’t already too late. She felt her skin harden, and she begins to grow, ignoring the tightening of her restraints and clothing. Finally, they cracked, freeing her, shortly before the collar exploded.

A searing heat, a blinding flash and a deafening boom sent her tumbling to the ground in pain. She rolled around on the floor, holding her neck as it felt like it was on fire. It took a few moments for her to realize that she hadn’t decapitated herself, instead merely deafened and blinded herself.

With her ears still ringing, which wasn’t helped by the constant blaring alarm, Sophia climbed back onto her feet only to stumble. She felt dizzy, the explosion literally having rattled her brain. She knew she didn’t have time to waste, a simple fact that she was reminded of as the ground shuddered again, causing the light fixture to come crashing down, casting the room into near darkness, the only light coming from the cracks around the door.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered to herself as she gripped the handle.

With a hard tug, the handle came off in her hand. This earned an expletive as she tossed it aside. With no other choice, she stepped back to the other side of the room and took in a deep breath before she started to expand her frame, even more, the exoskeleton disappearing as she did so. She then bolted forwards, ramming her shoulder into the door, smashing it clean off its hinges with her landing on top of it with a loud “Oof!”

Pushing herself back onto her feet for the second time in the same amount of minutes, she began to jog down the corridor, which now looked distinctly smaller due to her expanded frame. As she rounded a corner, she almost ran Alyssia down, who took a step back, eyes wide.

“W...What,” the doctor stammered.

“Alyssia, what’s going on?” Sophia asked urgently.

“I…” she continued to stammer. “You...”

“What’s going on?” Sophia repeated.

“They hatched.”

“What hatched?”

“We had those purple eggs you mentioned. Eight to nine feet tall they were. More of those things were in them. From what you told me about being inserted by one, then hatching out of an egg. I think those giantesses in Boston. I think they inserted women inside them and turned them into monsters. Their reproductive system, maybe even yours. I think they’ve been re-purposed to create more.”

Sophia had already figured that out. The dark entity, whatever it was, had turned women into giantesses and only women. The reason was simple, and that reason was for reproduction. As to whether males could be turned into giants, Sophia didn’t know, and at a guess, she would only find out when it happened, and even then that relied on it happening.

“I need to stop them,” Sophia told her. “Where’s the nearest exit?”

Alyssia shook her head. “You have to get back to your cell, they’ll...” she stopped staring as she looked at her neck. “Where’s your collar?” She then looked at her hands and feet as though only noticing for the first time. “Where are your cuffs?”

“I took them off. The collar stung like hell when it exploded, though.”

“H-how?”

“I grew enough to break them.”

“You can do that?”

Sophia was just starting to answer her when the hallway shook violently, knocking both of them on their asses.

“I have to stop them,” Sophia said as she jumped back to her feet.

Sophia took off running once more, covering herself in her exoskeleton armor as she began to grow even bigger. By the time she burst through the doors that led outside, she was near nine feet tall, and her clothes had been shredded.

All around her was gunfire, shouts and explosions. In front of her were two giant ankles that were thicker than tree trunks. Looking up, she saw a woman that was nearing fifty feet, though she knew she was a poor judge of how big things were, especially when they were magnitudes bigger and she herself wasn’t at her normal height. Looking around, she could see a second giantess, who had her leg raised, mid-stomp. Sophia braced herself as the giantesses foot came down hard, causing the ground to tremble as though the Earth itself was afraid. The Earth didn’t have to be afraid, though, not any longer. Sophia was here, and she was here to defend her.

The giantess in front of her bend down and tore the roof off of a nearby building. She then greedily reached inside and grabbed a handful of people, tossing them hungrily into her mouth like they were candy.

Sophia cursed at herself. She had caught herself stood there gawking like a moron instead of actually doing something, and now people that she might have saved had been eaten alive. However, that didn’t necessarily mean dead. Though, that did give her an idea of how to both rescue them and defeat this monster together.

Then she dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. She was being ridiculous. There was no way that getting eaten herself was a good idea, not even remotely. But the terrifying reality was, that some of them might still be alive inside her stomach and she might be the only one who could save them.

After all, even with his injuries, Charlie had survived being swallowed whole.

“Shit!” Sophia yelled out. “I can’t believe I’m gonna do this.”

Without further thought, Sophia ran forwards, waving her arms and shouting as she shrunk herself back down to her usual height and diffused her exoskeleton back into her skin. Her overall was a torn mess, exposing things no modest woman should ever expose. She was beyond caring about it now, though. As she continued to yell and shout, the giantess took notice, but instead of trying to eat her, she attempted to stomp her flat.

Sophia was glad that the giantesses were slower, even if it was only marginally because she was barely able to dive clear as the colossal foot came down with a thunderous boom. The giantess wasn’t finished though, as she raised her foot back up and drove it down, Sophia barely managing to roll out of the way in time.

So far, things weren’t going to plan. She had hoped the giantess would have eaten her by now so that she could try the tried and tested gut burst move. While she knew she could always grow bigger than her foe and slug it out, she didn’t know if her consumed victims would survive the onslaught. It was possible, them being safely nestled inside and all, but Sophia didn’t want to find out. At least not at the expense of their lives. It was clear that she was going to have to try another tactic. Or perhaps rather, a modification of her current one.

After dodging the third stomp, Sophia began to sprint while waving her arms. “Come eat me if you can, you giant bitch!” she yelled out. “Come on, you coward!”

Again, the giantess raised her leg. Sophia dived out of the way as the giant woman brought her foot back down, causing the ground to crack and shudder. In turn, the force of the impact sent Sophia into the air before she landed on her stomach with an audible “oof,” as the wind was knocked out of her.

“What am I doing?” Sophia asked herself. “I must be crazy. I’m actually trying to get myself eaten. I’ve lost my fucking mind.”

It was too late to change her mind, though, as the giantess reached down and gripped Sophia tightly around her body, her giant fingers gouging out troughs in the concrete. The young half-Colombian woman was lifted into the air and raised to the giantess’s face. Like the others Sophia had seen, her veins looked purple, and there was a slight glow in her eyes.

The giantess smiled before tossing her into her open mouth.

A sense of deja-vu struck Sophia as she felt herself drop from the oesophagus down into the stomach. Unlike last time, it wasn’t completely dark. There were flickers of flashlights from those that the giantess had already swallowed. It was clear, thankfully, that at least some of them were still alive. It was time to do her job.

“She swallowed someone else,” a voice shouted.

“I know, I saw her drop,” another voice said.

“It’s the damn prisoner,” a third said. “She’s fucking one of them!”

“Then why the fuck did the bitch eat her if she was one of them?” a fourth wanted to know.

It was time to fill them in on the plan, which Sophia wasted no time doing. “Yes, I’m the prisoner you’ve had locked up. Now shut up and listen to me…”

“Why should we?” the first voice demanded, interrupting her.

“Because if you don’t you’re dead. How many of these monsters have you killed?”

An answer didn’t come right away as a deep boom, followed by a rippling of the stomach acid. The giantess they were inside had undoubtedly slammed her foot down on whatever target she had in her sights.

“She’s right,” the fourth voice said. “We’ve only managed to kill these fuckers with nukes.”

Sophia began to lay it out for them. “I’ve killed one with nothing but my body and my abilities. Do as I say and I’ll try and save you.”

“How?” the second voice asked.

“Simple. I grow.”

“And crush us,” the first voice pointed out.

“I’ll hold you in my hands against my chest, try and cradle you.”

“I’m in,” the third said a little too enthusiastically.

“How many of you are there?” Sophia asked, hoping there weren’t too many.

“Just the four I think,” the second voice said. “There were more she ate, but the fucking bitch chewed them up. They were a goddamn mess when they dropped.”

Sophia took in a deep breath, trying to ignore the pungent smell that surrounded her. “Okay, listen. Follow my instructions, and you all might survive this.”

“Might?”

“Yeah, _might_ because I can’t guarantee it. I’m just a college student who involuntarily dropped out and now finds herself with freaky powers. So yeah, I _might_ be able to save you.”

“How do we know you won’t eat us once you’ve taken out your competition?” the second guy asked.

“Because I’m not in competition with them. I’m on your side.”

“Prove it.”

“I’m trying to prove it. I’m starting to regret coming after you. Remind me never to do this again, because it’s clearly not worth it. I’m fed up of being seen as a monster when all I’m trying to do is save you, bastards! I wasn’t fucking eaten for the lols. I came in because I wanted to save your fucking lives.”

“I believe her,” the third said.

“So do I,” said the fourth.

The first wasn’t convinced. “Well, I don’t. She’s trying to manipulate us.”

The second was the voice of reason, despite clearly still not entirely trusting her. “We don’t have much choice, do we. We’re dead if we don’t do anything, so we might as well trust her because we have literally nothing to lose.”

“Fine,” the first voice accepted. “I suppose it’s better to die with hope than without it.”

Sophia nodded as she tried to psyche herself up for what was to come. She knew she couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t end up crushing them as she grew, but she had to hope that whatever the divine being that had granted her gifts was, that it had the foresight to give her super-sensitivity when it came to her strength. She had to be strong enough to grip them, so they didn’t slip out of her grasp, but weak enough so that she didn’t crush them dead. She was frightened that she wouldn’t be able to and they’d end up dead, just like Charlie.

“Can you swim over to me?” she asked them.

“I think so,” the second said.

“I can,” the first said.

“I hurt my leg when I was swallowed, but I think I can make it to you,” the third said.

“I’m already on my way,” the forth said.

“Not yet,” Sophia warned. “Give me space to grow a little, then approach. I want to have a little scale so I can hold you.”

Sophia focused and felt herself begin to expand. This was it. In the next few minutes, she would see whether her plan would succeed or fail. She hoped it succeeded because she didn’t like the idea of these four men dying because of her inability to save them. She also felt like she needed to prove to herself that the second chance she had been given had not been for nothing. She wanted to prove to herself that she had been the right choice.

As the stomach around her began to feel constricted, she reached down and rested her hands in the acid. She could barely see the four soldiers floating there in the darkness, but with two of them holding flashlights, it helped her zero in on their location.

Sophia kept her voice a whisper as she spoke. “Swim together, back to back facing outwards.”

They did as she instructed, all facing outwards back to back. Carefully and slowly she moved her hands together, ignoring the clenching of the stomach muscles around her. The giantess they found themselves in was undoubtedly already in pain with the worst stomach ache she’d ever had. Unfortunately for her, it was going to get a whole lot worse.

“Here goes,” Sophia muttered as she slowly closed both her hands together to clutch the soldiers. They looked to be only half-a-foot tall in comparison. Still, they were large enough that she couldn’t properly close her hands around them, but still small enough that she could hurt them if she wasn’t careful.

“Hold on to my fingers,” she told them as she once more started to grow. As the stomach became even more constricted, she moved her hands against her expanding chest and focused almost solely on keeping them safe.

For a moment as she continued to grow, she thought their fleshy cage wasn’t going to give and that she was going to end up crushing the soldiers, but with a loud screech of agony from their consumer, the stomach burst open, and they were free. Knowing the subsequent fall could kill those in her grasp, she grew even faster, and her two feet touched the ground with a rumble as the giantess they had just escaped fell backwards shrieking in agony.

Without wasting any time, Sophia began to shrink, placing the four men down on the ground. One collapsed, and for a moment she thought she’d killed him, but the others helped him to his feet, and he gave her a thumbs-up, which she returned, shortly before they fled to safety.

It wasn’t over yet, though, far from it. Not only was the other giantess had seen what had happened and was en-route to pound Sophia’s face in, but five more erupted from the roof of the hangar. Much to her surprise, out of the five, only four were women. The fifth was a man, and he appeared to be bulking up as he grew.

The battle had now truly begun, and despite the poor odds, Sophia was determined to come out on top.


	20. The Battle

Six giant figures surrounded Sophia, though from her point of view they weren’t giants, but were, in fact, smaller than her, each to varying degrees. The tallest was the one who had been out the longest  and appeared to be only a foot shorter, however, considering Sophia was now maybe eighty-five feet tall it was a lot more than a foot in reality.

Out of all of them, the male giant was the most muscular. As he’d grown, his muscles had also grown, and now he looked almost cartoonish with his oversized muscles.

Sophia, of course, was now completely naked, and all attempts to form the exoskeleton around her body had failed. She didn’t know if it was a size thing, or something else, but she didn’t need it to show these monsters the error of their ways.

“Okay,” Sophia began, her voice booming. “Do you want to give up, or do I have to beat the shit out of you?”

While Sophia knew the only real way to stop them was to kill them, she felt weird about saying it out loud. She didn’t like the idea of becoming a killer and disliked the fact that she was already a killer twice over even less. Unfortunately, it was something that she had to do, and like the small soldiers who were currently retreating, she was now a combatant who had to do what needed to be done to ensure the survival of the human race.

One of the giantesses ran at her and almost out of instinct, Sophia spartan kicked her backwards, sending her opponent crashing into the new group, knocking them all to the ground. The ground quaked, and a few buildings within the walls of the facility collapsed, blowing dust into the air. Taking a glance around, she could see that the facility was in the midst of being evacuated, and she was offering them the needed diversion. She just hoped this proved to them that she was on their side and not that of the giants.

In her momentary distraction, the tallest giantess went for her legs, sending her crashing down, causing a nearby air-control tower to collapse. Before Sophia could get up, she felt fists start pounding the back of her head, before more fists and feet joined the fray, attacking her wherever they could.

A strong hand gripped her arm and hoisted her onto her side. It was the male, and he had his other arm reared back. Throwing it forward, he struck her hard in the face, causing her head to snap back. Her being beaten was not how this was meant to go, not at all.

“Why are you doing this?” Sophia demanded, realizing that there might be another way. Maybe she didn’t have to fight them, perhaps she could reason with them? “We don’t need to fight.”

The man struck her in the face again while another giantess kicked her in the gut, knocking the wind.

“Please,” Sophia said.

None of them answered as they continued to pound her into submission. With no other choice, Sophia decided it was time to turn the tables. No longer was she going to allow herself to be afraid as that fear would lead to innocent people dying. She could stop them, and she had to use it.

With a shout, Sophia once more began to grow even bigger, expanding her scale and mass to over twice the size it had been only moments before. The punches and kicks to her person seemed to diminish in power, but it was her who was growing stronger, more resilient with every foot she grew.

Striking out with her arm, she batted two in the face, causing them to stumble and one to fall over, smashing the concrete below. Sophia then began to climb to her feet, grabbing the male around the throat as she did so.

“There’s no need to do this,” she told him as she raised him above her head. “You could use this ability for good.”

“I’ll kill you!” he gasped. “Then I’ll destroy everything else.”

Sophia threw him down on top of two of the other giantesses, knocking them all down with a crash. She raised her foot, meaning to slam it down on them, but she hesitated. This allowed the others to grab the back of her leg in an attempt to bring her down. It worked, but in the process she fell on top of the fallen foes, crushing them into the ground under her enormous weight.

She scrambled to get off of them as she felt the three of them struggling beneath her mass, but the other giantesses jumped on top of her, adding to the crushing weight. While Sophia knew that simply laying there would end up asphyxiating those trapped beneath her, taking them out of the equation, she still felt bad about killing them. At this point, though, she knew there wasn’t any other choice. She had to put aside her humanity; otherwise, innocents would die.

Once more Sophia began to grow as she continued to lay there. She felt them struggling beneath her mass begin to grow limp until they stopped moving. Now over three times as tall as the tallest, she climbed back to her feet, finishing the job with a stomp that nearly split a nearby building in two. Sophia hoped there was no one still in the facility, but she also knew she couldn’t dwell on it. She had to focus on stopping these monsters before they escaped and did untold damage to the outside world.

With three crushed, there were three more she still had to deal with. At her current size, they wouldn’t be an issue. They had grown rapidly up to a certain size, then had slowed right down. That worked in her favor as she could grow at will, while it seemed they were more limited. As to the reason, the Entity of Light had alluded to her unlocking her full potential. She had full access to her range of giantess powers, the others didn’t, and the Entity of Light had said that it potentially made her the most powerful being in the universe.

That was a scary thought and a sobering one.

Sophia looked down at the tiny giantesses beneath her who all looked up in fear.

Sophia gave them an offer they would be stupid to refuse. “Shrink now, and I might just spare you.”

One did start to shrink as she took off running, while the two others tried to attack, kicking and punching at her legs. Sophia raised one foot and brought it down. The giantess on the left attempted to move out of the way but tripped over a low building. With a loud shriek and deafening boom, she fell on top of it, crushing it flat. Sophia altered the direction of her step, bringing it down on top of her. Her foe screamed out in pain as her body was crushed beneath the weight. The other giantess made the only rational decision and turned and ran.

Sophia began to pursue when she saw yet another giantess emerge from the hangar now almost decimated. The newcomer took one look at Sophia and bolted out into the desert that surrounded the facility. Knowing that the hanger was likely where the eggs were being stored, Sophia quickly peered inside to find she was right, though what she hadn’t been expecting was there to be so many. Roughly only about one-tenth of the eggs had hatched, with some being deathly still and others twitching as though they were ready to hatch more abominations.

Knowing that she couldn’t allow any more to spawn, Sophia raised her foot and brought it down on the eggs over and over again until they had all been pulverized to little more than mush. She then set off in the direction the other giantesses had fled in. She couldn’t see them, which either meant they could move quickly or they had shrunk themselves back to normal and hidden.

It was a good idea, one that Sophia agreed with. This was her chance to escape, and she was going to take it. As to where she was going to go, she had no idea, but the world was a big place, big enough for her to get lost.

First, though, she needed somewhere to lay low and figure out what her next move was. She needed to find the others, and the only lead she currently had was some giant mermaid in the Pacific off the Hawaiian islands. She had no way of getting to Hawaii, so she had to think of another way to communicate. There was no doubt in her mind that the mermaid; if she existed that is, was just like her, a girl transformed.

For now, she had to make sure she wasn’t caught again. She could do a lot of good out here, far more than being locked in a cell. It was time to get out there and do what she was destined to do. She had always wanted to help people, and now she had the opportunity to do just that. She wouldn’t try and run from what she had become, what she was, not any more.

It was time to be a hero.

That was the plan at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of this particular story. But there will be more to come.


End file.
